Law & Order: MCU
by amandajbruce
Summary: When Jemma's roommate suddenly goes missing, she finds herself assisting in an unorthodox investigation with a pair of New York detectives, and maybe even uncovering a conspiracy.
1. Chapter 1

Law & Order: MCU

-o-

Part One

-o-

"How long do we have to watch him flirt with her? I'm getting bored."

"Patience, Kaminsky. You know he always gets the girl. Or the guy for that matter."

The duo watched from the front seat of the van as their teammate, a veritable Clark Kent minus the glasses, smiled and reached out to gently touch the arm of the woman in front of him. She smiled as well, her eyes lighting up, but she still shook her head.

"She's not going to take him back to her place. He's probably not even her type."

"He's everyone's type. Just give him a minute." The girl on the street's smile became coy as she gestured behind her up the block. "See? She's telling him she won't get in his car because she lives just up the street. He knows what he's doing. They're on the move."

The dark haired woman's hips swayed as she walked. She bumped her side against the man playfully before taking his arm.

"Should we follow them? Raina?"

"Don't make it obvious."

-o-

"Two more months, Jemma. Two more months as an assistant, and then you'll have the necessary experience, and you'll be able to interview for the head of research and development in immunology. Two months."

She muttered similar phrases over and over to herself while dragging her feet through the hallway to her apartment. She thought it would remind her that late nights and thankless tasks were worth it. It didn't seem to be working.

It was after midnight, and Jemma Simmons was thoroughly exhausted. She was coming off a fourteen hour day that required her to analyze data samples and input numerical values into a spreadsheet, something an intern could have done if they had one. She had eaten nothing today but a handful of cashews and a banana. She wanted a nice cup of tea and maybe something really bad for her, like the ice cream her roommate kept hidden at the back of the freezer that had chunks of chocolate and candied cherries in it. Jemma could almost taste the sweetness. She ran a hand through her hair, pulling the pins from it and dropping them into her purse as she stopped in front of her door. Her keys jingled somewhere near the bottom, so she knocked hastily, knowing Skye would still be up. She was a night owl. A few minutes with no answer had her fumbling through files and flashdrives, digging below her wallet, and finally locating the ring of keys with a bright pink screwdriver attached to them. A gift from Skye. There had been a joke involved, but Jemma chose to ignore it.

"Skye?" Jemma called as she unlocked the door and entered the brightly lit apartment. There was no answer, but every light was blazing. Jemma blinked, dropping her keys on the kitchen counter and hastily flipping switches to turn off a few of the lights. Why in the world would Skye be wasting so much electricity when she kept complaining about how expensive the bill was? "Skye?" Jemma tried again, the sound of her footsteps echoing when she reached the tiled floor of the kitchen. There was no answer, and when Jemma stuck her head in Skye's bedroom to see if the other woman had her headphones in and couldn't hear her, she found the room empty. Looked like Skye was out for the night. Jemma shrugged, put a kettle on, and dug around in the freezer until she found the pint of ice cream hidden behind trays of ice, a bottle of vodka, and a bag of French fries. They really needed to do some real grocery shopping.

She would worry about it tomorrow morning when she got up, she decided. Just a few spoonfuls of ice cream and a cup of tea later, and Jemma performed her usual night time routine of make-up removal and a quick shower and crawled into bed. She was asleep in minutes, completely forgetting to set her alarm.

-o-

"Damn, damn, damn." Jemma repeated the word to herself like some sort of strange prayer as she pulled on a purple blouse, attempting to slide her feet into shoes at the same time. She tripped in her haste to dress for work, pitching herself back onto her bed. "Okay, slightly slower," she commanded, slipping her feet into a pair of flats and buttoning her shirt up to the collar. She ran through the hall once she was fully dressed, pulling her hair up on the top of her head and twisting it around a pencil to keep it in place. "Skye," she called out frantically, "I wish you would have woken me. I'll probably be late again tonight, we've got this huge meeting and-" She belatedly realized she was talking to herself.

It was nearing noon and the apartment looked exactly the same as it had last night. Skye hadn't kicked her shoes off and left them by the couch like she usually did. She hadn't left a half-finished bottle of beer on the kitchen counter when she returned from her late night. And there was no tell-tale scent of her orange blossom perfume anywhere. Jemma retraced her steps and poked her head into Skye's room, just as she had when she returned home last night. In the bright light of the morning when she wasn't exhausted from a day in the lab though, Jemma saw everything she had missed.

Skye's phone was still on her nightstand. Her laptop was half obscured under a pillow. Skye never left without at least one of them on her person. She was fiercely protective of the few things she owned. And she was always using one of her favorite pieces of technology. There was no way she would have gone somewhere without her phone at the very least. Her wallet sat on the floor, right next to a skirt, like she had hastily pulled it out of her pocket while changing, then dropped it on the floor. Her keys were nowhere to be seen though. The kicker was Skye's necklace. It was on the floor near her window, the thin gold chain ripped apart, a pair of links severed from quite a bit of force. Skye never took that necklace off. It was the one thing she still had from her childhood.

Skye was in trouble.

Jemma was sure of it.

She pulled out her cell phone and called in sick to work, the only time she ever had. Even when she contracted that odd strain of the flu a few months earlier, she'd simply walked around with hand sanitizer, her own personal box of tissues, and drunk about a gallon of green tea every day.

Jemma proceeded to call every place that Skye had worked in the last six months to find out if Skye had simply headed out on a job and not told her, just in case she was wrong or jumping to conclusions.

She wasn't.

Forty minutes later and no one she knew who was even remotely connected to her roommate had heard from her. Pacing in the doorway to Skye's bedroom, Jemma took one last look at the necklace on the floor, and she turned, closing the door behind her to make sure Skye's room wasn't disturbed. She knew enough about crime scene investigation that she was not about to disturb fingerprints or fibers or anything else.

If the possibility that Skye was kidnapped was the first thing to pop into her mind, she couldn't imagine a scenario where it wasn't true. Her mind made logical leaps before the rest of her could catch up sometimes. She was sure this was one of those times.

-o-

"And how is our newest guest, Flowers?"

"She's still sleeping. That sedative hit her harder than we thought it would."

"Let her sleep. We don't need her just yet."

-o-

"Look, I know how this must seem. Skye was a teenage runaway, and she's been homeless before, so of course, she's the kind of person who would just run off, but not from me. I am her best friend. We're like family. She simply wouldn't leave me with no warning." Jemma was on the verge of tears, but the officer at the desk shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Miss Simmons. There isn't anything I can do if she hasn't been missing for more than 48 hours. And you don't even have a last name."

"_It's Dr. Simmons_. And Skye doesn't have a last name!" She protested, throwing her hands in the air, and backing into someone behind her. "Sorry…" she mumbled, turning just enough to see a man in a suit shaking hands with another police officer.

"Sorry about that, sir. It was a misunderstanding. Didn't realize who you were working for," the police officer told the man.

"Don' worry about I'. We'll consider i' forgotten."

She was surprised to hear the Scottish brogue tumble from the man's lips. It wasn't something heard often in this part of the city. New York was a melting pot, but she couldn't remember the last time she heard the vocal tones of someone else from anywhere in the UK. Ordinarily, she would be delighted, but right now, her focus was solely on her missing roommate.

"Your roommate doesn't have a last name?"

"I told you, she was in the foster system growing up. She doesn't know her _real_ name. She changed her name from the one she was given at the orphanage when she turned eighteen. Have you been listening to me at all? Or are you more concerned with the women in mini-dresses over there that were picked up for solicitation? Should I have worn a skirt into the station instead of trousers?" Jemma knew she shouldn't have said it as soon as the words were out of her mouth, but she let her anger get the better of her, and she couldn't stop herself. She took a deep breath and attempted to compose herself.

The officer on the other side of the window glared at her. "When was the last time you saw your roommate?"

"Yesterday morning. Right before I left for work. She was just heading to bed."

"Then it's only been a little over 24 hours. Not long enough to report her missing. Wait and see if she contacts you." He didn't even smile, just called out "Next!" and proceeded to ignore her.

"You don't understand. She left her phone and she never leaves her phone at the apartment. Please!" But her words fell on deaf ears. Jemma sighed, realizing that no one was going to help her if Skye wasn't actually reported missing. She was going to need help from another source.

-o-

The bell clanged above her as Jemma opened the door to the travel agency. There was no name on the outside, nothing written on the sign hanging above the door, just a logo, an image of a plane hidden amongst clouds. Jemma supposed that no one happened upon this particular travel agency by chance. She only knew that it existed because Skye had taken jobs for them off and on, the last one only a few months ago. It was the one place she didn't have a phone number for, and the woman who ran it was the one person Skye seemed to trust outside of Jemma herself.

When the door shut behind her, all activity in the office stopped. There were only three people at desks out in the open – two women and a man, all in smartly tailored black business suits. The woman with deep red hair stood from her desk, exchanging a glance with the man seated across from her, and cleared her throat.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

"I'm here to see Melinda."

The woman flinched, but Jemma wasn't sure if it was in surprise or something else. Jemma forced herself to smile politely and shifted her weight from foot to foot. She wasn't entirely sure what was going on, why these people were looking at her as if she was about to open fire on them or something, but they were making her nervous.

"Of course. Wait here for just a moment?"

She disappeared into a hallway in the back, and Jemma allowed her eyes to roam around the office space instead of staring at the man and woman left behind, both now clicking away on their computers, completely ignoring her presence. There was a map of the world on the wall, colorful pins tacked into different countries, but no key to determine why different colors were used for different spaces, or even really why there were pins in them at all. Were these the countries they could book travel to? Jemma wasn't sure considering there were pins in countries that were typically very difficult for Americans to gain access to. There were no personal effects on anyone's desk. There were no plants to make the room more inviting. Nothing outside of the sterile white walls and grey furniture.

The woman returned to the front, a smile pasted on her face, and she gestured for Jemma to follow her down the narrow hallway, long curls bouncing as she walked. Jemma walked softly along behind her, passing unmarked closed doors, a restroom, and one open-door office that had a huge poster of a tropical beach and blue water tacked on the wall behind the desk.

_Visit Tahiti! It's a magical place!_

Other than that, the room was much like the rest of the business – white and grey, no personal effects to be seen.

"What's your name?" The woman asked politely as they reached the final office in the hall, just next to the emergency exit.

"Jemma Simmons."

She nodded, again, politely, but there was something in her eyes that Jemma couldn't place. Was that fear? Concern? Something else?

"Natasha," the woman told her, gesturing to herself before motioning for her to walk inside. "You can let me know if you need anything, okay?" Her words turned gentle as she spoke, as though Jemma was the one who was frightened.

"Okay?"

"Miss May, this is Jemma Simmons."

Then she was closing the door behind her, leaving her alone with the woman who owned the place. Jemma gave a little jump as the door clicked into place behind her and stepped a bit closer to the desk at the center of the room. Unlike the rest of the business, at least the occupant of this room had a plant on her desk. It was an oddly shaped cactus. Jemma couldn't remember the specific name of it, not having worked with too many of the prickly plants. She considered that it was probably an attempt at making the room seem warmer. It didn't really work. There was a map on the wall of the world, just like the one in the front room, but this one had strings of red yarn connecting some of the push pins to one another. Flight paths, maybe? This was a very strange travel agency.

"Have a seat, Dr. Simmons."

"How did you…"

"You're Skye's roommate."

It wasn't a question. She knew exactly who she was. Jemma sank down into one of the chairs in front of the desk. For something that looked like it belonged in a hospital waiting room, it was surprisingly comfortable.

"What happened?"

Melinda May had one of those faces that was used to holding itself in a strict and emotionless state. She was staring at Jemma with a calculating expression, as though she was trying to read her. Jemma felt like she was about to get into trouble with her boss instead of visiting a travel agent.

"I just – I wanted to see if you had heard from Skye recently?" She placed her hands in her lap primly, sat up straight, and tried to appear completely at ease.

"Is she missing?" Melinda may have been trying to remain emotionless, but the tightening of her fingers on the pen in her hand and the way her eyes narrowed gave her away. She was worried. She glanced down at a yellow notepad in front of her.

"I haven't seen her since yesterday morning," Jemma explained. "I know it sounds silly. She's an adult, and I'm just her roommate. She doesn't have to check in with me or anything, but – "

"But something about her being gone feels wrong. Did you try calling her?"

"Her phone's still in the apartment," Jemma whispered, grateful that this woman understood. Finally, someone was listening to her. "So is her computer."

Melinda looked up sharply. "Was anything of hers missing?"

Jemma shook her head. "Not that I saw." She wrung her hands in her lap, giving up all pretense of comfort. "Wait, no. Her keys are missing. But her wallet, everything else is there. And her necklace was on the floor. She never takes it off."

"Did you go to the police?"

"They said I couldn't report her missing for another 24 hours. And they said she didn't have a last name – they thought I was making it all up."

"Dr. Simmons. Jemma? You are not to go back to your apartment until I tell you it's safe. Do you understand?"

"What's going on?" A thousand different scenarios began to run through her mind, and none of them were good.

Melinda paused, placing her pen on the desk, her hands splayed on the surface in front of her. She took a breath before she looked Jemma right in the eye. "I don't know." She opened one of the drawers in her desk and rifled through a stack of business cards. "I'm going to have one of my people check your apartment though, change your locks, just to be on the safe side. You need to go into work, act like everything is fine, and I will call you when it's safe for you to go back to your apartment." She handed her a pair of business cards. One had no name on it, just the airplane in the clouds logo and a phone number. "That's my number. Anything happens. You call me." The second card was for a detective out of the Brooklyn precinct. "I'm going to set up a meeting for you with a friend of mine. He'll help you find Skye."

Simmons began rooting around in her bag for her keys. "I don't live in Brooklyn."

"Doesn't matter."

"My number is-"

"I've already got your number. From Skye. When she redesigned our system."

"Oh. Right. Here, you'll need my-"

"My guy won't need your keys."

"What the hell kind of place is this?"

"It's a travel agency."

-o-

When Jemma walked through security at the pharmaceutical company where she worked, no one batted an eye. No one asked if she was feeling better. No one even seemed vaguely surprised to see her. No one commented on her disheveled appearance or how her eyes seemed to be in a perpetual state of fear and confusion. Even Callie the receptionist, who was usually friendly and chatty with her, was otherwise occupied.

Did these people pay attention to anyone or anything other than the samples and the tests they were running? She wondered if any of them had spent a single night in the last month that didn't involve chemical equations or spreadsheets full of data.

Jemma found herself thanking whatever gods were responsible for throwing Skye into her path that she had a roommate who forced her to do things other than the job. Holding her key card over the swipe pad on the elevator, it occurred to her that she very well might not have Skye to pull her out of research mode anymore. She swallowed as the elevator climbed and she struggled to compose herself, her breathing coming in sharp gasps as the door opened.

She walked unsteadily to her lab, hands shaking, so she shoved them into her pockets. She was supposed to act as though everything was fine, everything was normal. How exactly was she supposed to act as though her roommate hadn't suddenly vanished at some point in the night? It was preposterous to think that anyone could just keep plodding along throughout their day in the face of that.

But she did.

One mistake in an equation and two dropped vials of blood samples on the floor later though and she was beginning to think coming into work had been a mistake. For what felt like the tenth time in so many minutes, she paused in her data entry to check her phone, see if she had somehow missed the travel agent's call.

Travel agent.

There was obviously something else going on there.

What had Skye gotten herself into?

What had Skye gotten Jemma into?

Just as she set the phone back on her desk, it chirped, letting her know a text message had come through.

_Safe. Meet me in the kitchen._

The kitchen? Jemma blinked, saving the spreadsheet to the company server, marking her place in the file, and shutting everything down for the night. What kitchen? The kitchen at her own apartment? This woman was so cryptic. It seemed as logical of a place as any though, so Jemma, giving into her instincts, filled out a request form for a medical leave of absence, scribbling in symptoms with abandon, signing Dr. Simmons with a flourish so that no one would question her, and left the building.

She wasn't coming back until she knew what was going on.

-o-

Skye cracked one eye open, not moving the rest of her body. She felt sluggish, like she was hungover, but she knew that was impossible. She licked her lips experimentally, left with an awful taste in her mouth. How long had she been asleep? She was in a room she didn't recognize, laid down on a twin bed. Her pulse picked up just a bit as she realized something was very, very wrong.

The last thing Skye remembered, she had taken her date back to her apartment, they had made their way to her bedroom, and then - nothing.

What the hell had happened?

"Skye?"

She recognized the voice attached to the person who came through the door and jolted upright, though that left her head spinning.

"What the hell?" She rasped out, scrambling back on the bed. "What the hell did you do to me, Grant?"

"Nothing. I - well - we need you for a job. It was just a little sleeping pill in your drink You'll be fine."

His tone was probably meant to be reassuring, but Skye was having none of it.

"Just a little sleeping pill?" She braced one hand on the wall to help her stand. "Are you kidding me?" Thank God she hadn't slept with him.

She glanced down at her clothes, remembering her state of undress when they were in her bedroom. He'd at least had the decency to put pajamas on her when he kidnapped her. She shook her head, her step faltering. When he moved towards her, she steeled herself and lashed out.

-o-

Her key didn't fit in the lock.

Jemma's key didn't fit in the lock _to her own apartment. _For a moment breathing failed her and she was on the verge of panic before she remembered that Melinda had mentioned having someone change the locks for her. She twisted the doorknob cautiously, and it moved easily, the door sliding open without its usual squeak.

The travel agent was sitting at her kitchen counter, a steaming mug of tea in front her that she gestured for Jemma to take when she walked in.

"My guy Shaw changed your locks." She pointed to a set of shiny new keys next to the mug. "He reinforced the latches on your windows."

Jemma nodded and took a sip from the tea. It was surprisingly perfect. Maybe not surprisingly. This woman was eerily good at reading people.

"He swept your place for bugs."

"Bugs?"

"Bugs. Didn't find any. No one's monitoring you."

"Why would someone be monitoring me?"

Melinda shrugged, not answering her.

"Did you think someone would be monitoring me, or did you think someone would be monitoring Skye?"

Again, the other woman shrugged. Jemma was becoming frustrated. This was _her_ apartment. Skye was _her_ roommate. This was _her _life. Didn't she have the right to know what was going on?

"I can't look into Skye's disappearance myself," Melinda told her. She tapped one finger on the counter. "I'm not in a position to do that right now."

"You're not – I'm sorry. You're in a position to have my locks changed and my apartment swept for bugs, but you're not in a position to help me find my missing friend?" Jemma blinked. She wasn't entirely sure what else to say.

"My relationship with Skye is complicated. The work she's done for me… It would raise more questions." Melinda paused. "I did set up an appointment with the detective for you. He'll see you tomorrow morning at his precinct. Nine sharp. Don't be late."

With that, she rose to her feet, the heels of her boots click-clacking on the floor as she moved to the front door.

"Lock the door behind me," she called behind her, like a mother admonishing a small child.

-o-

"Excuse me, lass? Are ye Jemma Simmons?" The voice that washed over her was a touch impatient, but still polite. She was sure she recognized it, but she couldn't place it.

"Yes! Are you Detective Triplett? I've been waiting for ages!" Jemma jumped to her feet, hand extended in greeting. He took it and shook firmly, but also shook his head in the negative.

"I'm sorry. Triplett's in a meetin'." He gestured ahead of him to a conference room down the hall. She supposed he didn't want them sitting in a room full of cubicles as they spoke. At least it wasn't an interrogation room. She imagined them to be filthy and frightening places.

"Oh, I was told I needed to speak with him about my roommate."

"Yes. I know. He's my supervisor – er… partner." He opened the door for her, waiting until she was inside and seated before he took a chair next to her rather than on the other side of the table. He twisted in his seat, facing her, and when he set the notepad down, she spotted his phone messages clipped to the top. They were addressed to a Dr. F.

"Oh. You're a doctor though, not a detective?" She pointed to the piece of paper in front of her.

"A person can be both." His tone was terse and when he leaned his elbows forward on the table, she knew where she had seen him before.

"Didn't I see you at another police station a couple of days ago? Weren't you being arrested?"

"It was a misunderstandin'. I was undercover on an assignmen'."

She didn't know how to respond to that, so instead she sat very still, her hands clasped in her lap.

"Miss Simmons? Why're ye here?"

She didn't correct him that she, too, was a doctor. Instead, she launched into her story. After attempting to explain all of the strange aspects of Skye suddenly vanishing from their apartment, she recounted her visit to the unnamed travel agency, which made the detective shift uncomfortably in his seat, his eyes clouding slightly. She gathered he didn't know that Melinda was responsible for the meeting.

"And Melinda had someone named Shaw change the locks at my apartment and sweep for bugs, and I'm not entirely sure why? I mean, I understand the locks. Skye's keys are missing. I'm sorry. That's not the point. I tend to ramble when I'm nervous. Or scared. Or frustrated. Or on a first date. Not that this is like a first date. I'm sorry. Again, I'm rambling and getting off track. She told me to be here at nine this morning. Melinda, that is. That your partner would help me. And I've been waiting forever." He was eying her with something similar to amusement now, a smile just beginning to quirk up the edges of his mouth.

"You call her Melinda to her face?" The slow southern drawl from behind her made her start, and she spun in her seat. A thin, broad shouldered African-American man in an expensive suit stood just behind her.

"Erm."

"I would have paid to see that." He entered the room and held his hand out. "Triplett. Sorry I'm late."

She shook his hand gratefully. The way his partner was looking at her made her think they weren't going to help her, but Detective Triplett had a much easier going manner about him. He seemed like the kind of guy who never turned down someone in need.

"May, that's what we call Melinda-" Detective Triplett was abruptly cut off by his partner.

"Tha's wha' _you_ call her. The rest o' us prefer no' ta call someone who routinely breaks an' bends laws for 'er own benefit by anythin' at all."

"What my colleague means is he likes to pretend that May doesn't even exist. Then, we don't have to deal with any paperwork." He chuckled and added, "But he's neglecting to tell you that she always sends us the most _interesting _cases."

"Interestin'. Yeah, tha's the word for i'."

Jemma looked back and forth between the two of them, not sure what to make of that exchange. One thing did bother her though.

"You think my flatmate being missing is _interesting?_" She furrowed her brow in anger, not caring about how confused she was about Melinda May, not caring about the fact that these two were actually trained to track down missing people. They were treating this with little more care than anyone else she had spoken with. Anyone, that was, except for Melinda May, the one person who wanted to help, but for some reason, couldn't. "This was a mistake," she blurted. "I'll find Skye myself." She climbed to her feet and exited the room before either of them could react.

-o-

"Ye had ta say _interestin', _didn' ye?"

"Am I the only one in this precinct who remembers that May sent us a guy who was sure werewolves had abducted his sister?" Triplett threw his hands in the air, but his face was lined with glee rather than frustration. He lived for the weird stuff May sent their way.

"The guy's sister was abducted on a full moon an' they lived in an isolated area… And yer the one who likes takin' her cases, and now, ye've upset that – what was 'er name? Simmons?" He made a show of consulting the notepad in front of him, but they both knew it didn't mean anything. He never took notes. Never needed to.

"May's cases are a challenge, Fitz. Besides, I saw the way you were lookin' at _Dr. Simmons._ You were not _interested_ in her missing roommate one bit. I wasn't the only one who made her mad." Triplett looked at Fitz pointedly and they stared at one another for a moment. "I know you don't have a lot of practice with interviews, but if you're goin' to look at every pretty girl that comes into the station like that, I can do all the interviews from now on." Trip's grin was sly as he slid into the seat vacated by Dr. Simmons. "Puts a little more work on my plate, and really, partners should have an _even _workload - "

"I didnae - I wasnae - that's ridiculous. I can do interviews jus' fine." Fitz sat up straight in his chair, even his eyebrows up and alert. "Did ye say she was a doctor?"

"See?"

"No, it's – never mind…" Fitz let out a quick burst of breath and shook his head, clearing his thoughts, trying to focus on the problem at hand. "There's somethin' abou' the way she described her roommate's belongin's tha' sounded familiar… no' havin' much, everythin' bein' left behind like she wouldnae need any o' it. But her keys were missin' so she could come back if she needed ta… Do ye have her address?"

"_Do I have her address_? How about you figure out what's so familiar about all that before we show up at her apartment after pissing her off?"

"Fine, fine. Give me fifteen minutes." Fingers were already swiftly clicking over a tablet, searching for buzz words in computerized files.

It took him quite a bit longer than fifteen minutes to find everything that he was looking for. And _everything_ turned out to be quite a lot.

-o-

"Sir? The girl's awake. How would you like me to proceed?"

"Ask her about her parents."

"But we already know she's an orphan."

"Then ask her about her friends… the girl she lived with. I want to know what she knows, what we can use."

"And if she doesn't know anything?"

"They always know something. Find a way to get inside that pretty little head of hers."

"Sir?"

"You have a problem with my orders, son?"

"No, sir."

-o-

Triplett eyed his partner. They were both weighed down with stacks of files. In the hallway outside of Jemma Simmons' apartment. At ten PM. This was not the way they were supposed to do things. You didn't take open case files to the home of a potential witness. You definitely didn't show up at the witness's place of residence in the middle of night with no warning when they were most definitely not a suspect. And you didn't do these things when you weren't even officially on a case.

And when your partner kept almost dropping his own stack of files because he was so concerned with flattening the curls on the top of his head or straightening his tie, you definitely didn't allow him to lead the charge.

This was going to go very badly. Triplett had a feeling about it. And his gut feelings were rarely wrong.

He sighed, raised one hand and knocked on the door anyway.

Dr. Simmons, though she was trying to keep her footsteps light and cautious, could still be heard making her way to the door and looking through the peep hole. Triplett did his best to appear friendly and not in any way condescending. He nudged his partner with his elbow when he heard a loud sigh and the turning of a few locks from the other side of the door.

She clearly hadn't been expecting company. Jemma Simmons was wearing a very comfortable looking pair of flannel pajamas, had her hair pulled back into a messy bun, had safety goggles perched on her nose, and was tugging a latex glove from one of her hands as she glared at them through the open door.

"What tha bloody hell're ye doin' in there?"

"Fingerprint analysis," she responded easily, with an expression that clearly asked them to challenge her. When neither of them did, she relaxed her glare, looking back and forth between them. "What are you doing here?"

Triplett was suitably impressed that she didn't snap at them, just glanced curiously at the files in their hands before biting her lip and opening the door wider to allow them inside.

-o-

"My, uh, partner and I wanted to apologize, Dr. Simmons," Triplett began, setting his stack of files down on the counter next to a microscope and a series of, just like she said, fingerprints encased in plastic. This woman was doing her own crime scene investigation prep. He almost felt like he should be ashamed that they hadn't got over here a few hours earlier with a full investigative kit. They could have helped. _If_ this was an official case.

She nodded her head, tossing both of her gloves into a trashcan and removing her goggles before turning to the other man in the room.

"Yes. We're sorry for makin' ye think we didnae believe ye. Or that we didnae want ta take the case." Awkwardly, he set his folders alongside the others and held out one hand. "I didnae introduce myself before. I'm Dr. Fitz. Just Fitz, really. Don' know why I said doctor. Ye don' have ta – "

Jemma began to smile before she caught herself, shaking his proffered hand. "It's alright. Fitz. I know my story sounds crazy. No one really wanted to listen to me except May." Her expression twisted curiously when Fitz blanched. "She's not really a travel agent, is she?" She asked as she reluctantly let go of his hand. His demeanor may have left her concerned that morning, but there was something about him and Triplett showing up at her door that was comforting.

"We don't really know what May does. It's probably better that way," Triplett admitted. "She's got contacts in a lot of different agencies. She gets things done."

Fitz walked by the two of them, eyes roving over the work Jemma had all over her kitchen countertop. "This is – impressive. Did ye ever work in forensic investigation before?"

"No, but I do work in a pharmaceutical lab. I thought a lot of the safeguarding procedures would be similar." She shrugged. "I've been practicing on the kitchen surfaces. Glasses. Bowls. Things like that."

"Fitz used to work in forensics," Triplett explained, following him to look at the fingerprints Jemma had put together with graphite, tape, and plastic sheeting. She had a yellow legal pad to the side with notes on it as well. Each print she picked up was labeled with exactly where it had come from, the mistakes she had made when lifting them, and how to improve her technique. "He's very particular. If he says it's impressive, you must have done one hell of a practice run."

She uncomfortably shifted her weight from side to side as they observed her work. Having expected them to be a bit harsh in their criticism, she just said, "Thank you." She paused when Fitz picked up one of the smudged prints and examined it. "It might be a bit of a waste of time though. I don't actually think Skye's fingerprints are on file anywhere, she's very secretive, you see, so I don't think I would have anything to compare it to once I fingerprint her room. I would just be clearing myself."

"You cannae fingerprint her room," Fitz remarked sharply.

"Why not?" Jemma crossed her arms over her chest.

"You've done a fine job," Fitz explained, trying to placate her and temper his usual attitude. "But if this becomes an official investigation, we have ta follow proper procedures."

Jemma reluctantly nodded her head. "Of course. I wasn't thinking. I haven't touched anything in Skye's room since I first thought – well, since I realized she was gone. Just the doorknob to shut the door."

"There anything she uses in the apartment that you never touch?" Triplett remarked, leaning his weight against the edge of the corner to peer over Fitz's shoulder. He decided not to ask how a woman got to be in her twenties in the US and not have her fingerprints on file anywhere.

Jemma thought for a moment, turning her back on both of the detectives to allow her gaze to alert her mind to something that was all Skye's. Her computer and her phone, of course, but as they had been in her bedroom where it seemed like someone else had been, Jemma couldn't be sure that someone else hadn't used them, or at the very least, attempted to use them, at some point.

"Her toothbrush?"

"Might be difficult, but I'll see what I can do," Fitz remarked, picking up several of her supplies from the countertop and producing evidence bags from one of his pockets. "Where?" He gestured down the hall as Jemma turned to him.

"Oh, last door on your left." She pointed. "Skye's toothbrush is purple." She nodded her head and pursed her lips together. It seemed silly to think about it, but the idea of Skye having been missing for nearly 24 hours without a toothbrush had entered her head. She hoped she wasn't somewhere too horrible. She hoped she had running water. Really, she just hoped she was okay, and worrying about whether or not her roommate had access to something like a toothbrush seemed preposterous, but the thought wouldn't go away. "Erm… would you like something to drink? Something to eat maybe?" Jemma called out. "I don't really know what I have that's edible…"

"Oh, we're good – " Triplett began to refuse, but Fitz's voice from down the hallway overtook his.

"Have ye go' tea? I havenae had proper tea in ages."

Jemma smiled to herself. "Earl grey?"

"Perfect."

She busied herself with filling her kettle with water and turning on the stove while Triplett asked her to repeat her story again. Jemma explained as she turned the temperature up about their different schedules, Skye being a night owl. As she pulled three mugs from the cupboard, even though Triplett had said no, she wasn't going to be impolite, she explained about Skye not being there when she got home, or when she woke up. She told him about the tell-tale signs of Skye having been home at some point – the discarded skirt and wallet, her phone on the nightstand and laptop forgotten on the bed. She fished a canister of earl grey from the back of the pantry and began to prepare the tea the way her father had showed her when she was eight. She had been making her own ever since.

"And you said she never goes anywhere without her laptop?" Triplett pressed as Simmons allowed the leaves to steep.

"It's rare." Jemma struggled to explain. "Skye doesn't own very many things that are just hers, that haven't belonged to someone else before her. Her laptop is like her lifeline. She saved up for it while she was working a few awful cash-only jobs so she could buy it. It's top of the line and does just about everything, according to Skye. She's – well, she takes on interesting work sometimes and there isn't much she can't do with a computer." That was as specific as she could go without worrying about getting Skye into legal trouble. Jemma added sugar to her own mug and raised the spoon at Triplett.

"No sugar for me, thanks. Fitz probably needs about four. He likes everything sweet." He ran his fingers around the rim of the mug she passed him, but didn't drink right away. "Is Skye a hacker?"

"As I said, there isn't much she can't do with a computer…" Jemma trailed off. "Would it help you to see her room? Would you be able to tell if there was a struggle?"

"Dr. Simmons, look – "

"Jemma, please."

"Jemma then." Triplett's fingers splayed out as he pushed his weight from the counter. "We're not going to get Skye in trouble for anything she might have done, okay? Not our job. We just want to find her. So I need to know what she does."

Jemma sighed. "I don't really know. Sometimes she designs websites for people. Sometimes she does research for them. Sometimes she breaks through company firewalls… I don't know all of the things she does." She paused again, her fingers gripping her mug and a mug for Fitz very tightly as she began walking from the kitchen. "I do know that Skye has very meticulously made sure that she doesn't really exist. She doesn't have a credit card or a bank account. She has a van, but I think it's still in her ex-boyfriend's name. Now that I think about it, I'm fairly certain it's on my car insurance…"

"The ex-boyfriend, he got a name?" Triplett followed her, his tea forgotten on the counter, pen and notepad already in hand.

"Miles. I don't remember his last name, if Skye ever even told me. To be honest, I don't even know where she parks the van. She hardly ever uses it since she moved in with me."

"How long has she lived with you?"

"About a year. My last flatmate, Jane, once she finished up her astrophysics doctorate, moved back to London to work. I could have afforded the rent on my own, but I don't like living alone, and Skye, well I met her at a diner about two blocks from here. She had been working, off the books of course, as a waitress for a little while, and I found out she was sleeping in her van when she wasn't working, so…"

"You offered to let her crash here for a while? You didn't even know her." Triplett's voice held not a small amount of awe in it. "I didn't know people like you were still out there."

Jemma shrugged as though it was no big deal, but she knew letting a stranger sleep in your apartment was probably not the smartest thing she could have done. She just had an instinct about Skye. Skye was the kind of person she could trust. She knew it then, and she knew it now.

-o-

* * *

><p><strong>This was written for the Marvel Bang over on livejournal, with the criteria that it had to be at least a 10,000 word story featuring Marvel characters from any medium. Artwork for the story was done by kultiras, and I'll put a link to it in my profile as soon as a I have it. She's fantastic, and did artwork for three different stories during the course of the Big Bang with an injured hand, so she definitely deserves so much more than thanks.<strong>

**As usual, notapepper used her magical beta powers to edit this for me, and she put up with all of my questions and whining about how difficult it was to write an AU and helped me with so many of the problem areas (there were a lot of problem areas, you guys). She also came up with a lot of clever lines for me to use and worked out so many plot points with me that I kind of lost track. She rocks, and if you all haven't read her FitzSimmons stories, you should. **

**Because this was a Marvel challenge and not just an Agents of SHIELD challenge, there are a lot of cameos from characters in the cinematic universe and a lot of hidden Easter eggs related to the movies and the show sprinkled throughout. I will be amazed if someone finds them all, but hopefully the ones you do find amuse you.**

**I hope you guys enjoy my foray into the land of AUs. Maybe don't read this all in one sitting though because it's kind of a beast. Haha.**


	2. Chapter 2

Law & Order: MCU

-o-

Part Two

-o-

"What is it you people want from me?"

"All in good time. We need to know we can _trust_ you."

"You're not the one handcuffed to a radiator!" Skye shook her arm, the metal bracelet on her wrist illustrating her point.

"I'll take the handcuffs off if you promise not to hit Grant again. He's got a lovely purple bruise forming under his eye now."

"Is that even his real name?"

"Of course it is, Skye. We haven't been lying to you."

"What's _your_ name?"

"Raina. I think we're going to be good friends."

The smile that crossed Raina's face was genuine and it did nothing but make Skye more nervous.

-o-

By one AM, Jemma was fairly certain that sleep was going to be necessary at some point, but Fitz was sitting on her couch, his third empty mug of tea in front of him, file folders spread out on her coffee table. He had been mumbling to himself for the last 20 minutes, ever since Triplett left to pick them up some takeout. Her offers to help Fitz with… whatever it was he was doing had been waved off repeatedly. He was waiting on a call from a friend of his who still worked in the crime lab, having sent several fingerprint scans to them by some sort of super-secret application on his phone that he wouldn't show her. Detective Triplett, before leaving to get them "fuel" as he had termed it, had made her go over and over everything she knew about Skye with him while Fitz had been hard at work on the surfaces of Skye's bedroom.

Jemma realized as she spoke with Triplett, eyes watching Fitz as he delicately lifted fingerprints with careful and steady hands and took pictures with his phone of every inch of Skye's personal space, that there were a lot of things she didn't know about Skye. Skye was her best friend, the person who knew her best, and Simmons couldn't even tell them where she had lived before this apartment other than her van.

Now, sitting on the arm of the couch while Fitz sorted through files, flipping through them so quickly, fingers moving over letters almost faster than she could process the words, Jemma felt a bit useless. She was tired of being the one who fetched his tea. She hadn't gone through years of study to be relegated to the person serving tea. And as Triplett had made a point of explaining to her that they couldn't officially take her case because Skye hadn't disappeared in Brooklyn, but they could help her ready evidence to submit for an official investigation with the correct precinct, it wasn't like she couldn't actually take a peek at one of those police files, right? Because they could already be in trouble for being here. With those files. Her reading a few lines couldn't hurt, right?

Jemma tilted her head, leaning just a little closer to Dr. Fitz, trying to look over his shoulder. The file in his hand wasn't issued from the Brooklyn Police Department. She saw a seal in the corner that made it very clear that particular file was issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She sucked in a quick breath (How had they got their hands on FBI files?) but leaned further to see what he was reading. He quickly closed the file and put it into one pile, then picked up another one. She froze in place, afraid that he had caught her, but it didn't seem like he was paying attention to her at all.

The file now in his hand was about a missing person from Connecticut named Ian Quinn. He had disappeared just as his company had made a huge breakthrough in research into prosthetic limbs. The man had made millions of dollars, then closed all of his accounts and vanished in a matter of days. The running theory had been that he had joined a cult. There had been a beautiful woman on his arm for the week before he disappeared. Most witnesses hadn't been able to agree on what she looked like – just that she was very soft spoken, that she always wore a flower in her hair, and she was constantly talking about the world changing.

His body was found three months later on the other side of the world. He had been crushed under a bookcase during an earthquake. It was hard to prove foul play when Mother Nature had done the dirty work, but his money had never been recovered. Neither was the bulk of his research. That was two years ago. His money was still out there somewhere being used by someone. The FBI was sure of it. They just couldn't prove it. And they had no leads on the woman.

Fitz moved the file to the pile on his right, though Jemma hadn't finished reading through the reports of his injuries. She had a feeling Quinn hadn't actually died in the earthquake. His injuries, the ones she had been able to read through anyway, sounded more like he had been thrown off a three story building than crushed by a falling bookcase. Someone had probably put him there, but she didn't open her mouth to suggest that, just watched as Fitz opened another file.

This one wasn't a missing person's case. Instead, it was an open homicide investigation. It had happened just a few months earlier, not far from where Simmons lived. Arson. This woman was burned alive in a warehouse owned by Lake Lerna Industries. That must have meant something to Fitz because he tapped the name of the company and dug around for another file labeled Zeller. She leaned even closer as he hurriedly flipped it open and read.

Kyle and Bebe Zeller had disappeared just after grad school. The couple didn't have anyone but each other. No family. Not very many friends by the look of the statements. They didn't own a house or a car. No credit cards. Just a lot of student loans and degrees in various computer fields. And just after Kyle got a very well-paying job with Lake Lerna Industries, his wife of all of three weeks had vanished. No trace. He was a suspect in her disappearance, but the police hadn't been able to find anything concrete. Kyle vanished about a month later. They were both found dead, twin brain aneurisms, a few weeks ago. But they had been missing for over a year. Longer than any of the other people Fitz had been looking into.

Jemma let out a slow breath when he flicked the paper in his hands with his fingertips. "Fitz? Did you find something? Something that can help us find Skye?"

He didn't answer her at first, just moved both of those files into the pile to his right. Jemma gathered that those were the important ones, the ones that might have a link to Skye disappearing. "I'm no' suppose' ta let you look at tha files," he told her by way of explanation.

"I know. You could get in trouble," she agreed, leaning back to put a little more space between them.

"Trip," Fitz said with a sigh, his eyes on the table, "he's tha one who'll get in trouble. He's no' technically my partner."

"What do you mean? I don't understand. He said you were his partner. _You said_ he was your partner." She slid down the arm of the couch and onto the cushion, tucking her feet beneath her. He shifted to give her more room.

"I'm no' a detective yet. I'm still a lab tech. Jus' with a weapons permit. Ye have ta take an exam to be ranked as a detective. I'm still jus' an officer. Trip, he vouched for me, he go' me permission ta work with him until I take tha exam." Fitz was quiet for a moment, his fingers playing with the edge of another folder. "His last partner died in a mugging." He shook his head. "Solved other people's murders everyday, and he go' mugged on his way home ta his kid. The chief wanted ta give Trip a new partner, but he told her he would only work with me."

Jemma smiled at that. "He must see something in you, the makings of a great detective. Like Sherlock Holmes? I mean, you've read through about a dozen of those files and you haven't stopped to take notes once. That's… I take notes on everything. I take notes on my notes."

"I have a good memory," he said, a smile starting to crawl its way across his face as well. "Alrigh'," he turned to face her, hands slapping onto his knees. "I have a theory. It's crazy. And normally, ye don' really put out a theory wi' this little evidence."

"Well, neither of us are normal detectives, so tell me quick before Triplett gets back and makes everything proper." She tried to turn her words into a joke, but she set her shoulders and prepared herself for the worst.

Fitz chuckled. He was glad Triplett had been the one to get the takeout. Normally, he would be asleep now, or using this time to catch up on his studying of proper procedures, but he was, despite being here because a woman was missing, very comfortable sitting on the couch with Jemma Simmons and reading through case files. Something about her helped him focus. Maybe it was the fact that when they got there, she let them get right to work. Or maybe it was the way she had welcomed them with endless cups of tea, or because she didn't act like a lot of the women they had interviewed in the past – not excusing herself to change her clothes or brush her hair or apply an extra coat of lipstick. Maybe it was the way she watched him, like he had the missing pieces of the puzzle she was trying to work out. He hoped he did.

"Okay, so… up until Skye moved in with ye, she fit a very specific profile. She had no family, friends, no paper trail ta her name, living out o' her van – "

"She was the kind of person who wouldn't be missed," Jemma cut in quietly, her shoulders dropping a tad. "If she disappeared, no one would notice."

"Yes, but," Fitz held one hand out as though about to pat her comfortingly, then thought better of it, pulling it back to himself, "then she moved in with ye, an' ye leave a fingerprint. Ye have a paper trail, a steady job, a lease, family and friends. Ye brought Skye inta tha light, so ta speak. Now, she doesnae fit tha profile. Whoever is goin' after these people, it isnae just because they willnae be missed. They needed her."

"So you do think she was abducted? Even though there isn't really any evidence of anyone else having been here?"

"Yes." Fitz nodded hurriedly.

"You said _these people_, how many are there?"

"At least a dozen, I think." He allowed that to sink in, watched Jemma take a sharp breath, one hand coming up to cover her mouth.

"That's horrible."

"Yeah, these three," Fitz gestured to the files he had placed on the top of the pile, "tha ones ye were pretendin' not ta read over my shoulder," he added, trying to lighten the heaviness of what he was telling her, though he wasn't sure that would work, "they all have links ta the same company. There were rumors from tha homeless population fer a while, a few people with conspiracy theories, about a cult upstate that was gatherin' members with promises about a changin' world, and tha's the same thing tha' people said about tha woman who was seen with Ian Quinn right before he vanished. He was lookin' inta buyin' Lake Lerna Industries right before."

Jemma nodded, following everything he was saying so far. She had managed to get that from the files that she wasn't supposed to be reading.

"She was goin' on an' on about corruption, about tryin' ta find her place in tha world. Him clearin' out his accounts an' givin' them his money would fit fer a cult. But the way he died? Tha' was no earthquake." He ran a hand through his hair. "There was a woman burned in a warehouse owned by tha same company. No positive ID on her, but she matches tha description of a homeless woman named Debbie who tried ta report her friend Gibson missin'. She said he was taken by a man fer this cult. Her friend Gibson though, he had a long history o' breaking' an' enterin'." He shook his head. "Tha police have been lookin' fer a cult, but I think tha's a mistake. This other couple that went missin'? They both had a lot of the same skills tha' Skye has. Between tha two of 'em, they could do jus' about anythin' with a computer. No discussion of a cult wi' them, but tha same company again. Jus' weeks after they turn up dead, Skye goes missin'?"

"Not a coincidence," Jemma agreed, nodding her head as well. "But all of these people, they're dead?"

"Well, those four, yeah." Fitz shifted in his seat, and he gave in, reaching out, placing a hand on one of her arms. "We'll find her before tha' happens, yeah?" He swept his thumb back and forth over the fabric of her pajama top.

"Aren't detectives not supposed to make promises like that?" She asked him with a sad smile.

"Like ye said, we're no' like normal detectives, right?" He squeezed her arm reassuringly. "Also, I'm very stubborn. I donnae give up. I get tha feeling you donnae either."

"Right… Does that mean you're going to let me help?" Her eyes brightened slightly. She wanted to be useful. She wanted to _do _something.

"Here," Fitz picked up a file from one of the piles and handed it to her, his fingers holding fast to it when she eagerly attempted to take it from him, "but when Trip gets back, I gave you nothin'."

"Got it."

He released the file and picked up one for himself. They read in silence for a few moments.

It felt strangely domestic, and Jemma had to remind herself not to lean into his side and curl up next to him. Fitz was not her boyfriend. He was a police officer. She had just met him! And he was here because he was going to help her find Skye. The pages she was reading were not some sort of mystery novel. This was real life.

Her eyes ran over the reports in front of her about a woman, a con artist who had never been caught. She sounded like some sort of urban legend. She was credited for a few dozen different crimes that all ran the gamut of illegal. Check fraud, identity theft, burglary, grand theft auto, there was even stolen artwork credited to this woman. There were so many different descriptions of her too. The only things that were consistent were that she was pretty, that she always seemed to get what she wanted, and she had a thing for plant life. There were several aliases attributed to her – Regina, Larenn, Rose, Reanne, Kiralyne, Raina, Fleur, Malkia, Lily, and Regine. No last names attached to any of them though.

Jemma skimmed through a witness account of this woman convincing a man to give her his car. _How on earth had she managed to do that? With a smile and a wink? _When Jemma reached the witness's description of her, there was more _oh, she's very pretty, but I don't really know specific features… I remember she was wearing a dark blue dress with lots of little white flowers on it, a flower pinned in her hair too… when I complimented her, she said everyone likes flowers._

"Fitz. The woman in this file. She's… she's a professional con artist it sounds like? She has so many names…" Jemma pushed the folder into his direction, spreading the pages across both of their laps. "Look at how these people described her – no one knows exactly what she looks like, or no one wants to say, but they all say she's beautiful and that she loves flowers. She even wears them in her hair. Like the woman last seen with Ian Quinn?"

"What are some of her aliases?" Fitz asked, leaning across her to grab a folder from the other side of the table as though something had just occurred to him.

"Erm… Regina, Larenn, Rose, Reanne – "

"Raina?"

"Yes. How did you know that?"

Fitz hurriedly flipped through pages. "There was a woman, foster mother o' Donnie Gill an' Seth Dormer. Tha kids were brilliant, but had a lot o' attitude problems. Didn't want ta have anything ta do with tha other students at their school… where is it?" He placed the file on top of the one Jemma had open to scan through pages. Jemma tried to follow along, but she wasn't sure exactly what he was looking for. "Here," he told her, pointing to a statement in the file, "she told tha police tha' Donnie an' Seth were both approached abou' an internship, but she couldnae remember the name o' the company. The woman who came ta talk with 'em was named Raina, but she couldnae remember her last name. They never found any o' the paperwork the woman showed tha kids fer tha intership in tha house."

"Ten to one the company is Lake Lerna Industries," Jemma said quietly. "You said these kids were brilliant, what happened to them?"

"They ran away. At least, tha's wha' tha investigators decided."

"They ever turn up?"

"No' yet."

Jemma leaned back on the couch, letting her eyes fall shut as she thought. "We have to find out more about this company. All we know is that they're connected to a lot of missing people, one of whom died in their empty warehouse, and one of whom wanted to purchase the company."

"Do ye remember if Skye ever mentioned them? Ever worked fer them?"

"I don't think so. She takes on a lot of little jobs though. A woman once hired her to break into her husband's email because she was convinced he was cheating on her with someone he met online." Jemma laughed, opening her eyes again to stare at the ceiling. "I don't even know how people know Skye can do things like that. This woman quite literally walked up to us while we were having lunch at a café one day and offered to pay her to get into her husband's email. Who does that?"

"Did Skye do it?"

"For fifty dollars, she did about five minutes worth of work, on the woman's cell phone." Jemma rolled her head to the side so she could see Fitz again. His brow was furrowed and he was watching her intently. "What?"

"Wha' was his name?" His tone was insistent.

"What?"

"What was his name, Jemma? Do ye remember?" He placed one hand next to her head on the back of the couch and leaned closer. "Yer righ' ta be suspicious. Normal people donnae walk up ta strangers in a café an' ask them ta do things like tha'."

"She said one of her friends had recommended Skye, that she recognized her."

"Do ye remember tha name?"

"Yes. Jasper Sitwell. He works for Furious Pharmaceuticals. Same as me."

-o-

When Jemma let Detective Triplett in with the cold takeout he was intent on apologizing for, he didn't even get a word out because his eyes were drawn to the huge white board Jemma had pulled into the middle of the room. Jemma hurried back to Fitz's side, adding the word "Raina" with a little crown to the middle. Her name was written just above the words Lake Lerna Industries. Lines connected the company to several of the missing people. Each of the missing people had special skills listed next to them.

Triplett whistled at the list of deceased on one side of the board and possible suspects on the other.

"You two have been busy."

"Fitz found a connection. Something is definitely going on with this company." Jemma smiled broadly at the other man, who was scratching the back of his neck with a dry erase marker, an equally wide smile on his own face.

"Well, Jemma had a lot o' input. She put quite a bit o' it together."

Triplett raised an eyebrow. If he wasn't so interested in the amount of information up on that board, he would have been worried about how comfortable Fitz and Dr. Simmons were standing in front of said board listing a bunch of potential victims and their murderers. "Should I leave you two alone for a little while longer? Can I come back and you can have the whole thing solved so all I have to do is present it to the chief?"

"Erm – you might want to hold off on that," Jemma told him. "There's a problem."

"What kind of problem?" Triplett resignedly dropped the food onto her kitchen counter. He popped open a container and bit into a spring roll. He didn't care if it was cold. He was starving. And tired of tea. At the sight of the spring roll, Fitz bounded over to his side and grabbed one as well.

"A few of these people," Jemma gestured to their list of victims, "their bodies were found in Brooklyn, and all of their deaths were ruled accidental, though I'm fairly certain this one was poisoned and this one had no history of drug use before he overdosed and this woman here, she was obviously strangled, but her death was ruled a suicide and – "

Triplett's head was starting to spin at the information.

"Jemma." Fitz held a container out to her as he said her name, and she crossed the room to take it from him gratefully, halting in her recap.

"The point," she said with a nod of thanks to Fitz, "is that the same police officer was the first responder in every single one of the Brooklyn cases that we think are related." She grabbed chopsticks from the bag and took a bite of noodles.

"You let her look at the files, didn't you?" Triplett deadpanned.

"That would be wrong," Fitz answered in the same tone, decisively shoving the rest of the spring roll into his mouth so he couldn't say anything else.

Triplett sighed, leaning back on the counter. If they couldn't take the case to the police, it wasn't going to matter that a civilian had helped. At least, that was what he told himself. "Who is it?"

"Peter Kaminsky," Jemma told him. "He's responsible for the very thin files on five of those missing people, including Dr. Streiten."

"Is that name supposed to mean something to me?"

"Dr. Streiten used to work for a highly successful chemical company, but he was recruited by Lake Lerna Industries and never heard from again until his body was fished out of the river." Jemma pointed to the middle of the board. "It all seems to go back to that company. But the company also doesn't seem to exist. You google it, and there's nothing anywhere. At least, not so far."

"Alright…" Triplett chewed thoughtfully, skimming the information on the board. "If it all goes back to the company, who's the queen in the middle?"

"I told ye he would get it," Fitz remarked around a mouthful of food, gently elbowing Jemma in the side. She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Raina. Tha's tha alias she seems ta use most often. We donnae know her real name, where she's from, or wha' she wants, but she pops up all over these cases."

"I think I've met her," Jemma added in a small voice. "In a café. She asked Skye to get into her cheating husband's email. The witnesses are right. She's very pretty. Dark skin. Curly hair. Large eyes. Soft voice. She seemed so nice… but she was very insistent that her husband was cheating."

"Jasper Sitwell. He's an executive a' tha company where Jemma works."

"But I tried to find any mention of him having a wife in the company's social calendar, and I can't find anything. I think she's after him too."

"Then we need to get to him first," Triplett said. "Find out what it is these people are really after." Triplett grabbed the tray of chicken and broccoli and read while he ate. "You're sure all of these people are connected to Skye being missing?"

"Yesh." Fitz spoke around a mouthful of food and swallowed before he continued. "No' sure wha' their endgame is, but look a' these people." He gestured to the skills alongside many of the victims. "Genius level IQs, thieves, hackers, even a former weapons dealer. Most of 'em only las' a few months before they wind up dead though."

"We can't let anyone else end up like that," Jemma cut in. "We have to stop them."

"We?" Triplett turned around and looked at the two of them. Fitz was staring at Jemma with the expression of a lovesick puppy while she watched him with bated breath. The guy hadn't even known her for a full 24 hours and he had it bad. "There's something you two haven't thought of."

"We know Jemma isnae a cop, but I think we're goin' ta need her help. We donnae know how many Kaminskys are out there."

"That's not what I meant." Triplett calmly took another bite of his chicken, chewing thoroughly and swallowing before he went on. "Did either of you stop to consider that Skye might not be a victim?"

Fitz didn't answer, but Jemma was quick to defend her friend.

"That's ridiculous. Skye isn't a criminal."

Triplett stared at her in disbelief.

"Well, yes, technically, she is a criminal. I'm sure a lot of her activities are very illegal. But Skye wouldn't kill people!" When Jemma turned to Fitz for support, he picked at the food in his hands instead, not saying anything. "You can't possibly think that!"

"She left everything behind and the only sign of a struggle is her broken necklace. Nothing else is out of place. How do you know she didn't just pick up and get out? Maybe you were the original target, not Sitwell. Maybe she couldn't get to you – "

"She had an entire year to get to me. And it's not like she befriended me. I approached her at the diner. I'm the one who asked her to stay," she protested. Triplett had to be wrong. "And what would they even need me for? It's not like I'm some criminal mastermind!"

"Maybe it's something yer company is manufacturin'." Fitz wanted them to stop focusing on whether or not Skye was actually a victim. The point here was that whoever these people were, they wanted something. "They work on anythin' dangerous?"

"It's a pharmaceutical company, everything could be dangerous. Anything not administered in the proper dosage, anything that's in its testing stages, I'm sure there are probably classified contracts too. It could be anything." Jemma shrugged, her eyes still hard and angry. "And I probably wouldn't have access to anything important. Right now, I'm mostly working on data entry. Everything's coded. There's no real information that I would have."

"But Skye could have got you access," Triplett pressed. "She could have hacked her way in, used you to get whatever it was they need."

Jemma shook her head, but her eyes opened wider and she gasped. "Sitwell's the executive in charge of our branch though. If they had access to him, they wouldn't need anybody else. He should have clearance to access everything in the company." Her knees buckled slightly and Fitz grabbed her arm, leading her to a chair. "He literally has every document, every study, at his fingertips. But it would all have to be accessed from his office. It's a closed network."

"We jus' need ta get inta his office then, get access to his files?" Fitz left his hand on Jemma's shoulder, not quite willing to let her go just yet.

"How?" Triplett took a seat on the couch now, elbows on his knees, his tray of food forgotten on the table. "We can't just walk in and question him. You can't walk in at all. We need you in the crime lab tomorrow. Or today. Make sure everything you had your friend look into doesn't stay in the system if we don't know who we can trust. If we're doing this, we don't trust anyone outside of this room, you guys got it?"

They both nodded their heads.

"Okay." Triplett nodded. "Then we're doing this. Did your friend ever call back with any matches on the prints?"

"Yeah. We go' one tha' flagged. A missing kid. Disappeared from his family home in Wyoming when he was fifteen after tryin' ta burn the house down with his brother inside. Name's Grant Ward."

"Jesus." Triplett breathed into his hands.

"Tha' was almost fifteen years ago. He hasnae been seen since. Family's never heard anythin' from him. He's the longes' missing connected to tha case. If he tried ta burn his brother alive at fifteen, who knows wha' he's capable o' now?"

Jemma's hands were shaking, so she crossed her arms, trying to hide it from them.

"One of us can stay with you until morning," Triplett offered.

She shook her head. "I'm all right. If they wanted me, they had plenty of time to get me." She took a breath. "I think I have a way to get one of you into Sitwell's office though."

-o-

Skye rubbed her wrist distractedly and eyed the can of soda that had been offered to her.

"I'm not thirsty."

Raina smiled at her, sliding into a seat at the table, keeping her face open and kind. She had always been good at this. Skye was going to do what she wanted her to do. It was only a matter of time.

"I am sorry about the cuffs. But as I said, we had to be sure you weren't going to get violent."

"Right. Wouldn't want me to do any permanent damage to your face," Skye snapped at her, but she kept her hands close, not lunging for Raina like she wanted to. She wanted to know exactly what these people wanted from her, exactly how much danger she was in, before she tried anything drastic. She'd been in trouble plenty of times, but she'd never been kidnapped by a bunch of crazy people before.

"I do happen to like my face," Raina agreed, her smile turning into a sly smirk. "What do you know about the work your roommate does?"

"Nothing. Science was never my thing."

"Well, allow me to explain a few things. The company she works for, they develop drugs to heal the sick."

Skye rolled her eyes as Raina spoke, but she didn't say anything.

"Your roommate, she's pretty low level right now, but she's on the fast track to be great. One day, she could cure Alzheimer's. Parkinson's. Different kinds of cancer. She's very smart. A genius, really."

Skye curled her fingers into her palms, nails biting into her skin.

"We wanted Dr. Simmons, but she was a little harder for us to get to. She's not as willing to meet new people." Raina blinked slowly at Skye's discomfort. "I don't mean to imply that you are… _easy _to get to." She allowed the words to settle into the air around them and Skye sat up straighter in her seat, reaching forward and popping open the top of the can of soda.

"Yeah… you aren't doing a great job at buttering me up. Just tell me what it is you really want."

"We want to change the world, Skye. And we want you to help us."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"There is a drug in development. Our intel indicates that it was intended as a treatment for Multiple Sclerosis, but the drug did something unexpected. It didn't target and block the proper pain receptors when tested. It targeted and eliminated _all_ pain receptors. We want it."

"Why?"

"Skye, can you not imagine what the world would be like if no one experienced pain? There would be no wars of retaliation, no heartbroken girlfriends plotting revenge, and if violence was necessary to halt any kind of crimes, those in law enforcement would be much more efficient if they didn't have to stop their jobs from a punch to the gut. There would be no nightmares to keep you up at night, no more wondering why your foster parents didn't want to keep you. Everything would be beautiful."

Skye shook her head. "That's crazy. We need pain. It's important. It helps us push through."

"We don't need pain. We've been conditioned to believe that pain makes us appreciate the good. It just gets in the way." Raina cocked her head to one side, reaching up to adjust the red rose she had tucked into her hair. "But if you believe pain is the great motivator, I have another proposition for you." She paused, waiting for Skye's eyes to meet hers. "You help us get this drug. You find where the samples are being stored, or hack in and get us the chemical formula, and we won't hurt the budding science genius Dr. Jemma Simmons."

Skye swallowed down the rest of the can of soda in quick gulps. She had been very careful in her life to never have anyone close enough that could be used against her.

"I'm going to need a computer," she whispered. "And I'm going to have a few conditions."

-o-


	3. Chapter 3

Law & Order: MCU

-o-

Part Three

-o-

Unlike his usual mornings, Detective Triplett woke up quickly, sun pressing down on him, heating his skin and leaving him seeing spots when he tried to open his eyes.

"What the _hell_?" he muttered. His bedroom faced another apartment building. The sun did not shine through his window. That was the primary reason he had picked that apartment when he moved to the city. He blinked, trying to adjust to his surroundings, and slowly sat up. He was in an armchair in an unfamiliar living room.

Not entirely unfamiliar.

He was in an armchair, his feet on the coffee table, shoes and tie still on, a white board outlining quite possibly one of the craziest conspiracy theories of all time, in Jemma Simmons' living room. He must have fallen asleep here after they discussed her getting him into Furious Pharmaceuticals under the pretense of an interview. He flipped his wrist up to take a look at his watch. It was closing in on seven.

"Damn."

He really wanted to close his eyes and get some more sleep. He'd only been asleep for what, three hours? If that. Last he remembered looking at the time it had been well after three and Fitz and Dr. Simmons had been babbling about the different drugs at her company that had a high value on the black market, whether or not the person responsible for these disappearances was some sort of crime king pin. He didn't remember what any of the drugs were called, much less what they did, that's how tired he had been by that point.

Triplett stretched, feeling his joints pop and crack as they adjusted to not being crammed into the tiny chair that was clearly picked out by a small woman and not a six-foot-plus man. He glanced over to the couch and just shook his head. Fitz was sprawled across the couch, feet tucked underneath the coffee table, head tilted back on the upholstered arm, his mouth slightly open. Curled up against his side like a cat was Jemma. Triplett thanked his lucky stars for what felt like the millionth time that this was not an official case and Jemma Simmons was not an official witness. If she was, he would have been forced to take Fitz off the case, or write him up if anyone else found out that Fitz had a little crush. He couldn't afford to have Fitz get into any trouble.

Not that Triplett hadn't had a fling or two with a witness in the past. Sleeping with someone after celebrating a closed case was very different from cuddling up to someone while you were investigating a missing friend for them though.

Jemma shifted, mumbling something in her sleep, and Fitz's arm seemed to instinctively twitch toward her, fingers curling into her pajama top.

Against his better judgment, Triplett grinned. They were kind of adorable for two people who had just met. Maybe she would be good for him. He was prickly. Like a cactus. She was definitely not. They could be cute and adorable like this as long as nothing actually happened and it didn't interfere with work. It wasn't like they'd done anything but fall asleep while Jemma gave them information about the case. Yeah, that was all. No policy infringement when it was just _sleep._

Instead of waking them up, he carefully made his way into the kitchen, making as little noise as possible, and located coffee and a coffee maker. Dr. Simmons didn't seem like a coffee drinker. The way she had forced cup after cup of tea on him last night made that clear. It was probably the roommate who drank the coffee. If he had one more cup of tea, he was going to throw the mug out the window. He set about making a pot, letting the fresh brewed scent wake up the duo on the couch.

And yeah, okay, while he was waiting for his coffee, he may have been watching to see how this whole "morning after" deal would go down, but that was because he was curious. And because he could really use a new reason to make fun of Fitz that didn't involve him being the only crime scene tech afraid to go in the morgue.

The coffee dripped and slurped its way into the pot and Triplett took a deep breath as the fun began. Fitz stretched his arm back above his head, a small groan escaping him. Something that sounded like "mmppph mm" probably came from Dr. Simmons as she slowly came around to the smell of coffee. Fitz, being the always vigilant man that he was, realized a split second later that he was in a strange place with a person up against him, and let out something that could have been a shriek if he was a twelve-year-old and he hadn't clamped it down just in time. The noise, slight as it was, was enough to make Triplett choke back laughter and startle Jemma into snapping up, and then tumble off the couch into an ungraceful heap on the floor.

"What the bloody – " she mumbled from the floor before looking up at the couch. "Oh. Right." She cleared her throat and smoothed her hair awkwardly, trying to tame the waves into something that didn't resemble a frizzy bird's nest. "Morning?" she offered in a small voice. Fitz just nodded his head and she scrambled to her feet. "I'm just – I'm going to – " she shot her eyes over to Detective Triplett, her face flooding crimson, and bolted from the room.

"Sleep well, Doctor Fitzy?" Triplett joked from the kitchen when he was sure Jemma couldn't hear him.

"Shut it."

Triplett laughed to himself, pouring them both cups of coffee while they waited for Jemma to come back.

-o-

Fitz snatched Trip's keys from midair as the detective tossed them from the kitchen.

"Don't scratch my car," he reminded him. "Remember, we drive on the right side of the road here."

"I've been in tha States since I was eighteen," Fitz shot back. "I think I'll remember no' ta travel on tha wrong side o' tha road." He rolled his eyes in Jemma's direction, and she answered him with a small smile. He opened and closed the fist surrounding Triplett's keys, biting down on his lip in thought. "Ye two be careful, yeah? Donnae let Sitwell know yer a detective." The words were for Triplett, but his eyes stayed on Jemma as he spoke.

She nodded. "You too. I mean, obviously, you don't have to worry about Sitwell, but you should be careful too. I imagine you can get into a lot of trouble erasing files from the crime lab."

"Suspension probably," Fitz lied. "Especially since it's no' an open investigation, but a personal task." Realistically, he knew he could lose his job, regardless of what files he was deleting. And it would follow him if he was caught. It would go in his personnel file. He'd never be able to work in law enforcement again. "I'll see ye later." He headed into the hall, his brain full of images of Triplett and Jemma being escorted out of Furious Pharmaceuticals in handcuffs – or worse.

Jemma stood in the kitchen, her fingers playing with the ends of the yellow legal pad in front of her. She was dressed in typical work wear, but she had made sure not to wear any makeup, leave her hair limp and lifeless. She was supposed to be out sick. But she was coming in, briefly, to get Triplett in for an interview in the security department under the pretense that her boyfriend could really use the extra money and he was incredibly good at walking perimeters. She sighed as Triplett set his mug back down on the counter.

"You ready?"

She started to nod, then paused, her eyes on the legal pad in front of her. "Erm – just – one second. Fitz should take this with him." She ripped the top page from the pad; it contained all of her limited notes about Lake Lerna Industries. Every piece of information that had appeared in the files was outlined there.

She jogged out the front door and into the hall, just meeting Fitz at the doors to the elevator before he left. "Fitz?"

He spun, sticking his arm out to prevent the door from closing on him. "Wha's wrong?"

"I thought – erm – I know you don't really take notes, keep everything in your head like some sort of Sherlock, but – " she stopped talking, taking a breath and shoving the paper at him, "this is everything on Lake Lerna. I know you're going in to get rid of all the searches you had them run last night, but I thought –"

"I could see if there's any other mentions o' tha business across other files I didnae pull. See if I can use financials ta track down the owner. Yeah. Thanks." He nodded, carefully folding the paper into a small square and sticking it in one of his pockets.

"Okay. Well. Be careful." She backed away from him, turning to go, but then spun back around, stepping into the doorway as the elevators started to close, her body signaling to them to run back along their track again. "Maybe – I mean – I was thinking… I know I have Detective Triplett's direct line, but you two aren't going to be at his desk today. Obviously, Detective Triplett will be with me this morning, so – I mean, just in case you have any other questions while you're working, maybe you should take mine? Number, that is." She let it all out in one breath and if Fitz had been anyone else, he probably wouldn't have understood anything she said, but Fitz was used to talking a kilometer a minute, so he knew where she was going before she even got there.

He bit down on a grin, fishing his phone from his pocket, unlocking it and handing it to her so she could put the number in herself. He watched the tips of her fingers run gracefully over the surface of his phone, tapping away before she gave it back to him.

"I'll – er – text ye. So ye have my number too. In case anythin' happens. And ye need backup."

"Backup." A nervous smile bloomed on her lips. "Yes. That would be good." She let out a nervous twitter. "I should – " she gestured behind her down the hall.

"I'll let ye know wha' I fin' then?" Fitz asked.

She nodded again, waving awkwardly as she took a few steps back, the elevator doors closing between them.

-o-

"Time for breakfast, Skye."

She didn't move from her position on the threadbare twin bed, staring at the ceiling. The door to her room unlocked and in came Grant, a tray in hand with a cup full of something steaming. She flicked her eyes to him once, then back to the ceiling.

"You need to keep your strength up. Raina negotiated for you. You get us the location on this magic drug, and you get to talk to your friend."

"Raina negotiated? I thought she was in charge."

"If this was a ship, Raina'd be the first mate. She's not the captain." He sat the tray on the bed as Skye sat up, her eyes darting to the door. "Probably take you three seconds slower than me to get to it," he told her. "I wouldn't try it."

She decided not to remind him that she had managed to get in one good punch to his eye before he stopped her before. She picked up the spoon from the cup, letting the lumps fall back inside. "What is this?"

"Oatmeal. It's good for you."

She wrinkled her nose. "Think you can negotiate me some cinnamon?"

"Just eat it," he sighed.

"Fine," she snapped back, making a show out of picking up the spoon again and shoving some in her mouth.

He nodded his head and turned back to the door. "I'll be back to get you soon."

"Grant?" Skye knew it was stupid and it shouldn't even matter, but it had been bothering her since she woke up here and she had to know the truth, if he'd even tell her. She was usually better at reading people. She waited until he was facing her again before she asked him, using the spoon to scrape at the side of the bowl, afraid to look him in the eyes. "Did you even like me?"

"I still do."

-o-

An hour later and Fitz was hunched over a computer terminal at the back of his old work room in the crime lab, his phone sitting next to him, just in case. It wasn't because he was expecting her to call him, he told himself. He wasn't some high-schooler waiting for a message from the cute girl in his chemistry class. He was trying to solve a kidnapping for Christ's sake. And keep the three of them safe.

He scanned through the work log in front of him, quickly deleting each and every print, whether a match was found or not, that he had scanned and submitted to one of the few friends he had in the lab. Most people thought he was abrasive, but he just liked things done a certain way. You had to be precise when you were working with evidence of a crime. You couldn't just leave envelopes and evidence bags scattered on the table with no system in place to organize them. Convicting a murderer could hinge on whether you improperly handled evidence. It was important.

His brain ran to the thought that maybe becoming a detective wasn't what he should be doing. Maybe he should be working in the crime lab. Most of the other people here were incompetent. They were lucky the police department even hired them. But when he had expressed an interest to Triplett, his friend had requested him – he was getting off track.

He deleted a slew of prints, and then did something he wasn't technically allowed to do – he accessed Grant Ward's juvenile file, using one of the few pieces of computer magic he knew to conceal what he was doing, hoping against hope he wasn't going to get caught. It was always tricky, accessing the files of another database, especially one in another state. If anyone found out… well, he wasn't going to let that happen.

Ward was from a small town. One older brother. A younger brother and younger sister. Dad had a couple of DUIs. Ward was recommended for extensive counseling at 12 when he stole a bunch of medical supplies from a local drugstore to stitch up his little brother himself. Claimed his little brother got into a fight at school and he was just trying to keep him from getting in trouble. A year later, Ward was busted for a string of fights at school. Two years without even a blip on his record after that. And then, he set his house on fire with his older brother inside. His parents didn't even show up to his hearing. And then, he vanished off the face of the earth. No trace of his fingerprints. No mention of his name anywhere. Except for the print on the side table in Skye's bedroom.

Fitz sighed, quickly closing all of the files and attempting to do another search of the system instead, targeting financial research instead of scanned evidence. Lake Lerna Industries. He never needed notes, but he stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out the folded square of paper from Jemma with a smile.

"Doctor Fitz? Wasn't expecting to see you. Thought you were on your way to being a big bad detective now."

Fitz sighed when he recognized the voice, minimizing his current screen and shoving the paper back down into his pocket. "Well, I'm no' a detective jus' yet," he responded cagily. "I was jus' checkin' on a few things for one o' Trip's cases. Thought it would be faster ta do it myself instead o' callin' it in." He quickly typed in the case number for the last case Triplett had been assigned before this whole thing with Jemma had happened. He and Triplett had decided it was an accidental drowning, but they hadn't submitted all of the paperwork yet, just waiting on toxicology reports to come in to confirm that the guy who'd landed in the fountain had been high out of his mind.

Maria Hill, currently in charge of the day-to-day goings on of the crime lab, and their direct link to the rest of the police department strode purposefully to his workstation. He swallowed nervously. It had taken a hell of a lot of petitioning to get her to agree to him making the move to the force and out of the lab. He was still supposed to be putting in at least ten hours of work in the crime lab, something he hadn't done in weeks.

"Well, it's good to see you back in here. Your work's more thorough than anyone else's," she admitted, a rare compliment. "I'll probably have to hire three techs to replace you when you officially make detective." She paused. "Shouldn't you be taking your last test soon?"

"A few days," Fitz answered, pretending to scan the information in front of him. It looked like the lab was still testing for a few more substances. He wasn't going to be able to pretend for long. But with Hill on the other side of the station, she couldn't see the screen in front of him. He clicked, bringing up the results for his original search, and began skimming as quickly as he could.

"You ready?"

Lake Lerna was, from what he could gather, a biotech industry, specializing in rehabilitation for injured soldiers. Seemed harmless at face value, the kind of company that was doing good works.

"I think so. Havenae botched anythin' yet."

"There's always a first time."

The company used to be a part of the larger Cnidarian Tech, a firm that had been shut down for creating false contracts to pad their finances. One of the Cnidarian Tech board members, John Garrett, who claimed to know nothing about the falsified records, had been the one to break away with Lake Lerna Industries, wanting to make sure the company was legitimate, that they were doing their part, and he was quoted in an interview, " to change the world in the wake of corruption." That sounded familiar. He clicked and clicked, his eyes narrowing. The money trail had this John Garrett, former military operative and field doctor, as the CEO. The trail stopped at him.

"I'm very careful," Fitz managed to respond while digesting all of that information. When Hill smirked at him, he closed the screens and deleted his search history in every possible way he could think of. No one was going to be able to track his work.

"Didn't you have the chance to take the exam last month too?" Hill needled.

"Yeah, but I was in tha middle o' helpin' Trip on a case. Never made it ta tha exam." The screen on his phone lit up with a text message from Jemma and he pulled it towards himself, hoping Hill couldn't see it.

_He's in. How do you stand undercover work? Nerve wracking!_

She had strung together a line of smiley faces of different types after that, some smiling broadly, others with what appeared to be sweat dripping from their heads. Fitz felt the beginning of a smile. His fingers itched to respond, but he turned his attention to Hill instead.

"Did ye need anythin' from me? I'm headin' back. Tox screens arenae complete."

"I just think you need to quit playing both sides, Doctor Fitz. If you're too scared to make the field a permanent assignment, we'd be happy to have you back here."

Her smile wasn't unkind. And she was probably just trying to help, but it annoyed Fitz more than anything.

"I'm takin' the exam nex' week. I'll be sure ta let ye know when I pass it."

He strode from the room.

-o-

Jemma was trying very hard not to pace. She had been in the women's restroom in the lobby for a few minutes, hiding out, making sure no one had seen her. After getting Triplett an appointment with human resources with him coaching her through it (her boyfriend had just lost his job, and he was really good at walking perimeters and watching security tapes, and she knew they were hiring on a few more people), she had disappeared from view, not wanting to push her luck. With Triplett's incoming text that they had sent him upstairs though, she had to return to the lobby to make sure Sitwell wasn't going to be heading up to his office.

He was currently in a room at the other end, making some sort of presentation to a group of journalists about one of their new asthma medications. She hadn't worked on that project, but she was fairly certain, if she remembered from company memos, that the medication he was praising only differed from what the company currently had on the market by a single component. It wasn't more effective, just less expensive for them to manufacture.

For the first time in a long time, Jemma realized she worked for a company that made most of its money from controlling people's illnesses, not curing them. She sat in one of the chairs and sent a quick text of her own to Fitz, hoping getting to speak with him would distract her from this terrible plan she had created. He didn't respond.

Of course.

Because he was working as well. What was she thinking? She could get him into trouble. Her fingers hovered over her phone, wanting to send him an apology for interrupting his work, but realizing that sending the message would defeat the entire purpose of the apology. She held fast to the phone and pretended to browse the selection of _Nature _magazines on the table in front of her, keeping one eye on Jasper Sitwell.

When her phone buzzed in her hands, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Hello?"

"Okay, Jemma, you said his office is on the twelfth floor, right?"

"Yes," she whispered. "There are only three offices. His is the first, closest to the elevators. His secretary shouldn't be in yet."

She heard Triplett's breathing as he climbed the stairs, quick, but steady. She tried to match her heartbeat to it so as not to give herself a panic attack at the thought that she was helping a police detective illegally gain access to the office of one of her bosses. They could both wind up in jail if they weren't careful, and then who would help Skye?

Fitz. Fitz would help Skye. She was sure of it.

"Erm – Trip?" She asked as she noticed movement in the room at the end of the lobby. He had instructed her over and over to not call him Detective. It would be a giveaway, which should have been obvious to her, but if he hadn't reminded her so often, she would have been likely to slip up.

"Yeah?"

The sound of a door opening and closing could be heard through the line.

"I think he's done. He's leaving the room. And he's heading toward the elevator bank. What do we do?"

"Stall him."

"What exactly do you mean by stall him? How am I supposed to slow him down?" Jemma was on the verge of panic again, one hand pressing the phone to her ear so hard she was probably going to leave a mark, the other twisting insistently in the hem of her sweater.

Detective Triplett sighed on the other end. "You're a bright girl. You have a PhD for Christ's sake! I'm sure you can think of something."

"I – I've never had to stop someone from going up to their office because someone was ransacking it before!" she hissed into the phone. "And he's smart too, what if he sees right through me?" She stood and shifted so that she was slightly hidden by a potted plant, trying not to appear suspicious.

"Well, don't lie to the man, just… flirt with him a little. Take his mind off his office."

She could almost hear the smirk in his voice. It was like Triplett was enjoying this. Was this the same man who kept going on and on about how she wasn't trained for this and she needed to follow his instructions exactly? "You want me – to flirt – with him?" She dropped the tone of her voice even further. "I can't –" She watched Sitwell milling around in the lobby, shaking hands with a few of the reporters, and cut herself off, waiting for Trip to explain.

"Everyone can flirt, Doctor Simmons. And don't say you can't. I've seen you with Fitz. Even when you're nervous. If you're that nervous, use it. Act like you're in a hurry. When you're breathing fast, like just after jogging, it changes the rhythm in the way you speak. Makes it easier to lie, harder for people to figure it out." There's a clunk on the other end of the line, and Jemma hoped that noise meant he might have just found something they could use. That would be worth her discomfort right now.

She wanted to ask if they got training in lying at the Police Academy or something, but she was too stuck on the earlier part of his statement. "I don't – I have more important things on my mind than flirting with your colleague – Not that Fitz isn't appealing or that I _wouldn't _flirt – Wait, don't tell him I think he's appealing – I mean – Oh, god – " She sputtered, unable to get her thoughts in order as their target crossed the remainder of the lobby to head for the elevators. Heat crept up from her throat to her face. This was not the time to be thinking about that. She heard the quiet chuckling coming through the phone. "Right, fine. I have to get on the elevator now, so I probably won't be able to hear you," she hedged, slowly walking over to the elevator banks. "I'll talk to you later." Without actually disconnecting, just in case she needed help at some point, she carefully slid her phone into the pocket of her sweater, rocking back on her heels and smiling up at Jasper Sitwell. When the metal doors opened, she sidled up behind him and followed him inside the otherwise empty elevator and hoped that this company was large enough that he wasn't going to recognize her on sight.

"What floor – Sir?" she asked politely, positioning herself next to the buttons and swiping her employee card.

"Twelve."

She nodded and hit the button, then pressed the 11 for herself, knowing she couldn't very well exit on the same floor as him. Her hands shook, and she balled them into fists at her sides. She gave a huff, smiling at him. "I'm a little nervous," she told him conspiratorially. "I'm supposed to be interviewing for a promotion." That was logical, right? Human resources was on the eleventh floor. That's where Triplett was supposed to be.

He smiled sympathetically. "I'm sure you'll be alright."

She turned toward him, leaning just a bit closer to the elevator buttons as the doors closed. "Oh, I hope so. At least the project models are lovely to look at while I wait…." She inwardly cursed her inability to make small talk. "That model of a rainforest biosphere in the lobby? Amazing."

He turned toward her as well as the elevator began its ascent. "Oh, are you in agriculture? Natural remedies?"

"Oh, no, I've always been much more interested in chemistry…" She told him emphatically, leaning fully against the panel now, trapping one hand behind her back to push each of the lower level buttons. She could do this.

"Really?" The way he smiled at her made her even more uncomfortable, but she took Triplett's words about her ability to flirt (not that she had been doing that at all) with Fitz to heart and imagined what his expression would be after her words, her cheeks coloring prettily at the thought.

"Oh, definitely." She tried to make her voice low and seductive, the way Skye had often procured them free drinks at the bar around the corner from their apartment. "The different reactions when you mix unknown quantities together? Thrilling." She was practically purring at him now, and it made her slightly nauseated. She hoped it didn't show on her face. "Don't you think so, Mr. Sitwell?"

"I do. Call me Jasper. Please."

Jemma let out a high pitched giggle to cover the fact that she was in no way offering up her name to him. She was fairly certain she had never made that sound before. Her eyes widened and she struggled to keep an innocent look on her face as they stopped on a floor where there was no one waiting to get on the elevator. She shrugged when no one got on, still blocking his view of the buttons.

As they stopped at three more floors with a ding and whoosh of the elevator doors, but no one came aboard, Jemma could see the frustration playing out on his forehead. If she didn't distract him, he was going to want to get off and take the stairs.

"I – er – I love your shirt," she remarked lamely, wanting to smack herself in the forehead. "It really brings out the curve of your – elbows." Elbows? She really was very, very bad at this.

"My elbows?"

Yes." Jemma nodded her head firmly. She had said it. She was going to commit to it. "Perfect shirt for them, really. What is it made of?" She took half a step closer to him, trying to keep his view of the buttons blocked, but reaching out her hand to allow her fingers to graze his elbow, letting her touch linger and fluttering her eyelashes for good measure. It was quite possible that she was really going to be sick.

_Ding._

"Cotton?" Sitwell said, eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

"Cotton. Of course," Jemma smiled as though that was the most obvious answer in the world. "Such a useful product, isn't it? We use it for so many things. So versatile, almost like hemp." She inwardly cringed as she realized what she had just said. Hemp? Really. Had she actually said that? "Not that I am overly familiar with hemp. I just know that the different varieties of the plant have been used in clothing, jewelry, building materials, you know… things like that."

_Ding._

"Uh huh." Sitwell was staring at her as though she had just grown two heads.

Maybe, Jemma considered, a little makeup wouldn't have hurt, especially that red lipstick Skye had always insisted was a man magnet. Jemma's brain grappled at topics that meant nothing. "Do you find that cotton keeps you cooler than other fabrics as studies suggest, or is that all just rubbish?"

"I've never really thought about it." He paused. "What position did you say you were applying for?"

_Ding._

"Oh, I – " The doors opened yet again, and there was a woman standing just outside. "Hello!" Jemma called cheerfully, waving at her manically.

"Are you going down?" She asked.

"Up," Sitwell told her tersely.

The other woman sighed, putting her hands in the pockets of her lab coat as the doors closed in front of her.

Jemma stood quietly for the next few floors, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart.

_Ding._

"Well, this is me. Wish me luck!" She stood in the open doors, hesitating. She hoped Triplett had enough time to get out of there.

"Good luck."

She hurried down the hall toward the office for the head of human resources, then ducked quickly into the women's bathroom, pulling her phone from the pocket of her sweater.

"Trip?" she whispered. "Everything okay?"

"Stairs," he responded.

-o-

They ran down four flights of stairs in relative silence until he gestured for them to exit to the seventh floor, where they grabbed an elevator.

"Did you find anything?" she asked him.

"Nothing, really. I only had time to go through a few drawers. I did grab this list of properties the company's looking at for an expansion project though. One of them is labeled LLI. Probably not a coincidence." Triplett shook his head, leaning back against the elevator wall.

"You mean – " Jemma cut herself off, allowing that to sink in.

"Well, I hope so. Otherwise, this might have been a waste of time. Though listening to you tryin' to flirt with Sitwell? That made up for it. What the hell was that?" He gave her a slow smile. "If you were on the force, we would never be able to put you undercover."

"Excuse me if I don't have a lot of practice deceiving people," Jemma told him haughtily, running her hands through her hair and looking away from him.

"Cotton is so versatile," Triplett mimicked in a horribly high pitched attempt at an English accent, "just like hemp." He doubled over with laughter. "That shirt brings out your elbows!"

"I do not sound like that!"

"Oh, girl, that made my day!"

"It's really not that funny," Jemma said, trying to keep herself perfectly composed, but her lips twitched in spite of herself.

"I told you, you didn't have to lie to him, just flirt with him a little, keep him entertained." Triplett wiped one of his eyes.

"And I told you I don't really know how to do that," she shot back, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Jemma, please," Triplett waved off her protest. "Everyone knows how to flirt. _You _know how to flirt. I've seen you." When she attempted to protest, he held up one hand, cleared his throat, and leaned toward her, blinking his eyelashes slowly, ducking his head, and then moved his hand to his hip. "Fitz," he breathed out in his horrible imitation at her voice, "you're a regular Sherlock Holmes."

Jemma opened her mouth and closed it again, not sure how to respond to that. She narrowed her eyes as he began laughing again. "You weren't even there when I said that."

Triplett doubled over again. "Did you really say that?" He asked between bouts of laughter. "What did he say?"

"We are not talking about this. You are supposed to be helping me find Skye, not coaching me on my love life."

Triplett's lips twitched again, but he didn't say anything else until they exited the elevator on the ground floor.

"Jemma!" A voice called to her from the reception area. "I thought you were out sick?"

"Who – " Triplett started to ask her, leaning in close as he remembered the charade.

"Anne Weaver, head of our Genetics department," Jemma whispered, hands fluttering nervously in front of her. As Weaver got closer to her, all business, Jemma smiled wanly. "I am," she said loudly, voice shaking. "I just stopped by to drop off some paperwork. Never made digital files… you know how it is." Her face heated, sweat dripping down the back of her neck.

"Let me know when you're back," Weaver said easily, though her eyes were narrowed in suspicion, "I've got some interesting projects coming up. I might be able to steal you away from Immunology."

"Oh – erm – we'll see," Jemma answered with false cheer.

"Come on, babe," Triplett cut in, quickly taking her hand and twining their fingers together, "I told you I was takin' you to see a _real _doctor."

"I am a _real _doctor," Jemma protested defiantly, as he pulled her away. She didn't breathe until they were outside and on their way to her car.

-o-


	4. Chapter 4

Law & Order: MCU

-o-

Part Four

-o-

"How's it coming, Skye?"

John Garrett swaggered through the room like he owned the place. Well, he probably did. Or someone on his payroll did. Either way, he was the one bankrolling everything.

"Another dead end. Sorry."

Skye tried not to push herself away from the table when he leaned on the other side. Of all the people she met in this place, he was the only one who creeped her out. Raina gave her pause, but she could handle Raina. She could practically feel her skin crawling away from her body when John Garrett entered a room.

"You've been trying to locate this drug for us for almost a week now. I'm starting to think Grant and Raina were wrong. You aren't as good as they think."

"I _am _good. I'm _the best_. But their system is… strange. Wouldn't it have been better if you had someone on the inside?"

"What makes you think I don't? Furious Pharmaceuticals compartmentalizes their classified work in their different departments. Some of the execs don't even know what they're sittin' on. Bunch of paranoid babies."

"Looks like they're right to be paranoid," Skye muttered under her breath. Louder, she asked, "When do I get my phone call?"

"When you prove you're worth keeping alive."

She breathed out a sigh when he left the room. Grant eyed her curiously from his position at the other end of the table.

"You don't like John, do you?"

_No, Grant, I don't like John. He's kind of an asshole. I'm pretty sure he's a terrorist. And I'm pretty sure I've got files on him from when I worked for that organization I'm not supposed to talk about a while back. He's bad news._

Skye didn't say any of that aloud though, figuring it wouldn't go over very well. Instead, she asked, "Do you?"

Grant didn't say anything, just looked back down at the newspaper in front of him. Skye was tempted to ask him how a seemingly normal guy got mixed up with a group that wanted to steal a miracle drug, but she didn't. She clicked a few more keys on the computer instead, burrowing her way into Furious Pharmaceuticals' system. She'd broken through their firewalls every day, sometimes multiple times a day, easily covering her tracks, but she kept purposely making mistakes so the system would lock her out and she'd have to start over again.

To put it plainly, she was stalling.

She was stalling while she counted how many steps there were from the room they kept her in to the bathroom (37), while she kept track of the number of airplanes that regularly flew overhead (3), while she counted how many windows she had seen in this building (1, but it was covered), while she paid attention to how many mornings they woke her up with crappy oatmeal (6), while she counted how many members of this criminal team she had seen with her own eyes (4), and how many different voices she had heard when she wasn't supposed to be listening (7).

She was stalling while she tried to find a way to contact Jemma or the police in a way that wouldn't be noticed and wouldn't get anyone (really, herself or Jemma, anybody else was collateral damage in her mind at this point) killed. But she hadn't found one. Not yet. But she wasn't done. Skye didn't give up easily.

-o-

Settled into the driver's seat of his car, Trip sipped his coffee, eyes flicking from the front door of the convenience store and along the sidewalk. There were still a couple people inside the store, but on a busy street like this, they probably weren't going to get another chance to do this with less civilians in the way.

"You ready?" he asked Fitz.

Fitz didn't answer him. Again.

"Fitz?"

"Hmmm?"

Trip turned his head, setting his coffee down, and looking at his partner to see what had his attention so wrapped up. He was staring raptly at the screen on his phone, a grin on his face.

"Are you even listening to me?"

Fitz snapped his head up, his face flushing. "Yep." He nodded his head enthusiastically. "I'm listenin'."

"Yeah? What's the plan?"

"Ye go through tha fron' an' I go 'round back?"

Trip shook his head.

"Tha's no' tha plan? Tha's always tha plan. When did tha plan change?"

"Fifteen minutes ago when I told you the owner's got the back entrance locked down for us, and we can pick up Chan in the front. He's working the register. Fifteen minutes ago when I took that phone call. Seriously. You haven't been paying attention for the last fifteen minutes, have you?"

Fitz turned away from him and looked out the window at the door to the convenience store. "If I say I havenae, are ye goin' ta shoot me?" He joked and gave a sly grin, hoping Triplett wasn't as annoyed with him as he seemed.

"Nah. Too much paperwork. And I'd have to get a new partner because Internal Affairs would probably be worried that we had some sort of problem," Trip drawled. "I don't want to have to break someone else in."

"Glad ta know ye value me so much," Fitz quipped, the grin still on his face.

"I value you a lot more when you're not busy flirting with Doctor Simmons when we're supposed to be working," he deadpanned.

"I'm no' flirting!" Fitz protested.

Triplett had a fleeting thought of telling him that was true because the two of them were apparently _really bad at it. _He kept his mouth shut though and kept staring at Fitz until the other man finally turned back to look at him.

"I don't care if you flirt with her, all right? But you can't be distracted on the job."

"She said she's go' Sitwell's schedule fer tha next couple o' days. She's friends with his secretary, I guess? Called an' asked abou' him, made up some story abou' wantin' to avoid runnin' inta him." He sounded proud of her. Trip didn't think Jemma had gone into detail about her disastrous attempt at flirting with the executive. "He's supposed ta have 'meetin's' with someone about tha LLI properties tha next two days." Fitz used air quotes as he said "meetings," just in case Triplett didn't understand what he and Jemma were thinking.

"You and I can stake it out tomorrow, see what's going down. But we gotta arrest Chan today." Triplett paused. "Jemma's case isn't even a case, remember? We let our other work suffer, someone's going to know something's up."

"Yeah, I know." Fitz tucked his phone back in his pocket. He sighed, the back of his head connecting with the headrest when he leaned back. "She's jus'… We're the only ones she can talk ta abou' this, ye know?"

"She doesn't text _me_ every few hours," Trip pointed out with a chuckle.

"Let's jus' go an' get Chan, yeah?" Fitz was already out the door before Trip could say anything else.

"Come on, Fitzy," Trip called, jogging after him when he got out of the car, waving at and dodging a cab as it pulled out ahead of him. "You can tell me if there's something going on. It's obvious you like her."

"We go' a fire bug ta arrest. You should focus on the job," Fitz teased as he opened the door to the convenience store. A quick scan of the inside showed that there were a pair of teenage girls at the soda fountain, so he ambled down one of the aisles, stopping in front of a selection of gummy bears and peach rings.

"No junk in my car," Trip told him from the next aisle.

Fitz rolled his eyes and picked up a pack of gum instead.

"Sugar free," Trip called to him.

Fitz rolled his eyes again, but he switched the gum out, holding the pack he chose over his head to prove to Triplett that he had picked up the sugar free option.

"Oh, hey, look at this, Fitzy," Triplett remarked as the two girls walked up to the register to pay. "Did you know they sell Cajun boiled peanuts here? Man, I haven't had those since I was a kid."

"Why tha hell would ye boil peanuts? Tha' sounds disgustin'." Fitz made a face, but came around the end of the aisle to move closer to the display of heated foods near the register.

"Man, don't talk about things you know nothin' about. Cajun boiled peanuts are like… ambrosia to the southern gods." Trip smiled wistfully, taking a deep breath in and savoring the aroma of the different spices. The teenage girls giggled as they handed over their money, elbowing one another and pointing at Trip.

"Yeah," Fitz told them, "he's a special lad."

That only made the girls giggle harder as they walked out the door and whispered to one another behind cupped hands.

"You want a cup of the nuts?" The attendant at the register asked. Fitz eyed his nametag.

_Chan, 1 years of service_

"Yes!" Triplett exclaimed. "I'd like the biggest cup you've got."

Chan smiled at them, shaking his head, and preparing a Styrofoam cup full of the peanuts for him. Fitz plopped his pack of gum on the counter and pulled out some cash to set next to it. As Triplett took the cup from Chan, he backed up, knocking over a display of packaged snack cakes.

"Oh, man, I'm so sorry," he said easily, starting to bend to pick one of the packages up, but Chan hurried around the counter and waved Triplett off.

"No problem. Happens all the time."

When Chan had his back to Fitz, Triplett nodded his head at him, so Fitz pulled out his handcuffs with a sigh. Triplett was on this whole Fitz-practicing-his-collar kick lately.

"Chan Ho Yin, yer under arrest fer three counts o' arson in tha fourth degree. Ye 'ave tha right ta remain silent…"

Triplett watched proudly as Fitz brought the other man's arms around his back and slapped the handcuffs in place before the guy could even pick anything up. He quickly reassembled the display while Fitz went through the whole spiel, the owner coming out from his office in the back while he did, and when he tried to pay the man for his peanuts, the owner just waved him off. He picked up Fitz's gum from the counter and followed him back to the car.

"I didn't do it," Chan protested from the backseat as Triplett bit into a peanut, spitting out the shell.

"Ye really shouldnae talk," Fitz told him. "There's a lot o' evidence against ye. Wait fer yer lawyer at the station."

Triplett tilted the cup in Fitz's direction. "Try one."

"I'm no' tryin' a boiled peanut."

"Doctor Simmons would try one."

Fitz rolled his eyes.

"Fine, then you drive so I can eat."

Fitz climbed into the driver's seat and started the car.

"Really, I didn't do anything," Chan pleaded from the back of the car, "just let me go."

Fitz and Triplett ignored him.

"Ye know, she's makin' lasagna tonight."

"Have you had dinner at your own apartment at all this week?"

"When else am I suppose' ta talk ta 'er abou' her case? She invited ye too."

"I have a date."

Fitz pulled out of the parking space and into traffic. "Ye donnae have a date."

"I do."

"Is it _tha FBI agent_?"

"Why do you always say _the FBI agent _like she has the plague?"

"She doesnae like me."

"She likes you just fine. She just doesn't like that you always beat her at pool when we go to McClaren's."

"She called me weak."

"She wasn't talking about you, she was talking about our case. You need to pay more attention."

"Ye wan' me payin' closer attention to yer girlfriend?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Wha' is Sif even short for?"

"Huh. I never asked."

"Siffany? Siffnifer?"

"Bro. Seriously?"

"Guys, really, I didn't do it!" Chan tried again from the backseat.

"Shut it," they told him in unison.

-o-

Jemma paced.

Slowly, but she still paced.

There were now three dry erase boards in her living room. One still had the original notes from the first night the detectives had been in her apartment. Another was full of the information they had been able to find on Lake Lerna Industries and John Garrett, which admittedly, wasn't much. The third had all of the information she had been able to gather about Skye.

With her roommate being missing for six days, Jemma was starting to doubt her own belief that Skye was a victim in all of this. The thought that Skye could have been in on whatever was happening was making her physically ill. She was exhausted all the time, but she wasn't about to hide under her covers worrying and wondering. She was determined to figure this out.

_If it wasn't for Fitz and Triplett_ –

There was a knock on her door, and Jemma jumped. She had almost forgotten that she invited the two of them for lasagna while they talked about the next step to finding Skye, even with Fitz's text from ten minutes ago letting her know he was on his way. It was a good thing she hadn't actually forgotten to _make_ the lasagna. In fact, the smell of cheese and tomato and basil had been permeating through the apartment for the last hour, but she wasn't particularly hungry. At least the food wouldn't go to waste with Fitz coming to share it.

She padded carefully over to the door, standing on her toes to peer out and see who it was, just in case. Fitz stood on the other side, hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. He almost looked nervous. Her mouth curved into a smile just seeing him on the other side of her door, her heart beating a bit faster, warmth spreading through her like she was outside on the first spring day after a long winter. It was unfair that he could cause this reaction in her when she was still so upset about Skye.

Fitz was very quickly becoming the silver lining to the storm cloud.

She unlocked the trio of bolts and buttons to let him in.

"No Triplett?" She asked curiously.

"Ah, no. I tol' him he was invited too, but he apparently has a big date." Fitz rolled his eyes.

"I take it you don't like his date?" Jemma tried not to smile so wide. The effort of clamping down on it was making her cheeks ache.

He locked the door behind himself when he stepped inside. She watched his fingers twist the bolts into place with an easy familiarity before he loosened his tie and shrugged out of his jacket, and her stomach fluttered like a teenager getting picked up for the big school dance. She very determinedly tried to ignore it.

"It's no' tha' I donnae _like_ her. She's jus'… she doesnae seem ta like _me_ very much."

"I find that hard to believe," Jemma said without thinking. She had quickly come to the conclusion that there was very little about Fitz not to like. She didn't even mind when he acted like a petulant child or when he angrily jumped to conclusions with his partner. All the little pieces that would be annoying on someone else just combined to make him all the more appealing. He was determined, smart, quick thinking. He looked at her curiously. Oh, screw it, she thought to herself. "Would you like something to drink? I've got water or wine. Or tea." She headed toward the kitchen, listening to his footsteps as he followed her. They were light, but steady, and it was nice to hear the sounds that came with another person being in the apartment instead of jumping every time the heat kicked on. Especially since that person was Fitz.

"Erm –" Fitz watched as she pulled open the oven and fished out a lasagna that could have fed ten people. "Wine," he decided firmly. "Wine is good."

"Okay. Could you – " Jemma gestured with her shoulder to one of the cabinets as she put the lasagna down. "The glasses are – "

But Fitz understood quickly enough and set about getting them both glasses of wine while she grabbed plates and cut one large section of the pasta for him, and a much smaller one for herself. She wasn't sure how much of it she was going to be able to eat, but lasagna was supposed to be comfort food, and there was a chill in the air, so it was what she had filled her afternoon with. She was tempted to put the plates on the counter and perch on a barstool, but that would put them side by side, and she wasn't sure if that was too intimate, so she led him to the small dining room table she and Skye had picked up from the sidewalk outside their building, setting their plates across from one another. She wanted to see his face when he took his first bite of lasagna too, especially considering that as tired as she'd been today, staring at the white boards in between chopping up fresh herbs and boiling noodles, she might have forgotten some crucial ingredient.

He didn't disappoint.

When the first piece of gooey tomato and cheese entered his mouth, he closed his eyes and made a noise that made her flush.

"Good?" she asked needlessly before taking a bite of her own. The expression of pure joy on his face left her feeling smug.

"This is bloody amazin'. Been a long time since've had homemade lasagna." He grinned at her. "Thank ye."

She shrugged, hiding her smile behind a sip of wine. They were both quiet for a few moments, Fitz wolfing down half of his food while Jemma slowly made her way through hers. It was, surprisingly for Jemma, not awkward to sit with him in almost complete silence. It was nice. It made her feel like a normal woman after the end of a long day having a relaxing date with her boyfriend. As soon as the thought entered her mind, it made her pause and take a long pull from her wine glass.

She wasn't stupid. She knew she liked Fitz. That's why she found all of his traits endearing. Okay, she more than liked him. It had become fairly obvious given that her heart practically beat out of her chest at just the thought of him. But he was a police officer. And he was investigating the disappearance of her best friend. And that made things very complicated.

But he was also in her apartment with her drinking wine and eating dinner and – oh, he was saying something to her. She set her glass back down on the table.

"Thank ye for sending me Sitwell's schedule. Trip an' I 're goin' ta try to follow him to his meetin' tomorrow."

"Just you and Detective Triplett?" She pulled apart one of the layers of lasagna in thought. "But I – "

"Jemma, you cannae go on a bloody stakeout!"

"Why not?"

"Because – I – You – Trip – I mean – Yer not trained fer it," he sputtered, struggling to put the emotions he was feeling at the idea of Jemma on the side of the street watching a suspect into words. "If somethin' were ta happen–"

"I wasn't trained for sneaking someone into a pharmaceutical company either, but I managed to do that just fine. I'm not trained to investigate missing people or murder victims, but I've been doing that too."

"Maybe ye shouldnae be," Fitz said before he could stop himself.

"What?" Jemma gasped out the word, her fork hitting the plate with a clatter.

"I'm no' sayin' ye shouldnae be tryin' ta find Skye. She's yer friend and her bein' missin' is horrible," Fitz explained, putting his own fork down as well. The ideas of wanting to make her feel better about her situation and wanting to tell her the statistics on people missing longer than 36 hours warred in his brain. His hand reached forward on the table, intent on comforting her, then pulled back just as quickly, too fast for Jemma to notice it even happened. "We've seen it happen with tha family members of missin' kids – they get so caught up in tha search, they donnae remember ta live their lives. I think ye need ta let Trip and I do more o' tha work, alright? Go back ta work, cure some diseases," he offered with an attempt at a smile. "Donnae stop thinkin' abou' helpin' Skye. But let us help ye."

"You are helping," Simmons responded quickly. "I just – all those files you had before, all those missing people?"

Fitz nodded, gesturing for her to continue.

"So many of those people, there's no one looking for them. There's no one that _cares_ about them. They don't matter to anyone. There's no one out there waiting for them to come home, keeping their phone charged in case they call or hiding their favorite vodka in the freezer or making sure there's still enough of their shampoo in the shower." One of her hands played with the neck of her shirt, a nervous habit she'd had for years. "I don't want Skye to be forgotten. She matters to me."

"I'm no' goin' ta forget abou' her."

"I didn't mean that you would forget," Jemma whispered. "But what you're asking me to do is just go about my life as though nothing's changed and come back to an empty apartment and not know where my best friend is, and I don't think I can do that."

"Alrigh'," Fitz said, nodding his head. "Well, wha' would ye normally be doin' on a night like tonight, if ye got back and Skye was out?"

"Erm – I don't know. Laundry? Go through files for work? Watch television?" She flicked the fork on her plate experimentally, but didn't pick it up again.

"Okay. Then this is wha' we are goin' ta do tonight. We are goin' ta eat this fantastic lasagna. Then, we are goin' ta go over the information we 'ave. Then, we are going ta spend time doin' somethin' normal, like watchin' somethin' on the television. A little bit o' normal at a time."

He smiled encouragingly at her, so she picked up her fork, suddenly finding herself ravenous, and took another bite.

-o-

For the third time that week, Fitz woke up on someone else's couch with that someone else curled up next to him. This time, he didn't twitch away in surprise or send her tumbling to the floor. Instead, he watched Jemma sleep and texted Triplett to cover for him. He was going to stay until she woke up, however long that took, whether it was a good idea for him to be there or not. He knew that she was worried about Skye, that Skye didn't have anyone else. But the truth was, despite the few work acquaintances she spoke of, Jemma Simmons didn't seem to have anyone else either, and he wasn't going to leave her to suffer alone.

-o-

Triplett leaned back in his seat, languidly signing his name to another file. He had no more open cases. He was spending his morning catching up on paperwork. Fitz was supposed to be helping. Instead, he'd had to lie to three different people, telling them that his partner was chasing down a missing witness statement on one of their cases that had somehow disappeared from the file. He added the folder in front of him to his done pile and picked up the last one he needed to finish, the arson arrest he and Fitz had made the day before, flicking through the pages and making sure there was nothing out of place, nothing that would come back to bite him in the ass when the case went to trial.

He heard the quick clack of boots behind him, and he stopped himself from clenching his teeth in annoyance.

"Captain Hand," he announced loudly when the reflection of her face could be seen in his computer monitor. "To what do I owe this visit?"

"Just checking in. How's your paperwork coming? All caught up?"

"Just about. I triple check my work, you know."

"Cute." Her tone of voice made it clear he was anything but. "Where's your doctor?"

"My _partner_ is tracking down a missing witness statement for me. I didn't want to bog him down with paperwork since he's got his exam tomorrow. Want his head clear." Trip signed another line, checked a few boxes, and closed the file with a loud slap.

"He going to take the test this time?" Hand asked, perching on the edge of his desk and tucking one of her strands of bright red hair behind her ear.

"Course he is. We don't have any open cases." Triplett paused, raising an eyebrow. "Nothin' to get in the way this time. Unless you're here to give us another case?"

Hand shook her head, her lips pursed as though something else was on her mind, but she whatever it was, she didn't voice it. She hadn't been particularly thrilled with Fitz as Triplett's partner, but they were clearing twice as many cases as anyone else, so she couldn't really be that upset by the pairing now.

"Well, if that's all, since I'm done with my paperwork and it's after noon, I'm going to give my partner a call and have him meet me for lunch, if that's alright, Captain?"

Hand nodded reluctantly, so Trip climbed to his feet and got the hell out of there.

-o-

Fitz took the stairs from his apartment building two at a time, a tie hanging around his neck and a coat draped over one arm, hiding his own computer. He didn't even feel the crispness of the fall air right now, but he didn't know how long he and Triplett were going to be sitting on the side of the road with their eyes trained on a building, waiting to figure out if Jasper Sitwell was the guy they needed to find a way to Skye. He could be freezing by sundown. Or he could need a pillow. His coat worked great as a pillow, as he had discovered on his last (and first) stakeout with his partner. And his laptop was loaded with the necessary software to track Sitwell's company credit card. He had also duplicated the company's security interface, and set it up to alert him if Sitwell used his ID badge in any of the company's satellite offices as well. He had learned a few things from his brief tenure in the cyber division of the crime lab, but he definitely had no plans to go back.

Triplett's car was idling next to the curb in a no parking zone, and he was working his way through a bag of banana chips.

"Crisps made from bananas?" Fitz asked as he climbed in the car, ignoring the cab driver who flipped him off when he opened the door into traffic.

"Wanna try one?" Trip held the bag out to him expectantly.

Normally Fitz would turn down an offer of Trip's attempt at a healthy snack, but he had a good feeling about this one, so he snatched one from the bag and popped it into his mouth, and almost choked.

"Why're they as hard as a bloody rock?" He snapped after finally chewing and swallowing.

Triplett shrugged, pulling the car out into the steady stream of vehicles. "Maybe you need better teeth."

"Tha's ridiculous."

"Hand asked about you today."

"Wha' did ye tell 'er?"

"That I had you tracking down a missing witness statement."

"Thanks."

"Sure."

Triplett didn't say anything else as he drove, but Fitz could tell that he was dying to. Fitz bounced his left leg, shaking the entire car when they came to a stop at a traffic light.

"Nothin' happened," Fitz informed him when the light changed from red to green.

"I didn't say it did."

"Ye were thinkin' it."

"You don't know what I was thinking."

"We ate lasagna, an' we talked abou' Skye, and I fell asleep watchin' some stupid musical tha' made her laugh, okay?"

"Fitz," Triplett laughed as they pulled into the parking lot of Furious Pharmaceuticals just a few spaces back from Jasper Sitwell's car, "I'm not judging you for not coming into the station. You _like _her. I get it."

They both watched the front door to the building for any sign of Sitwell, but after a few minutes of silence, Fitz added, "I'm worried about 'er."

"Doctor Simmons?"

Fitz nodded his head. "She took a leave o' absence from work when Skye wen' missin'. She's spendin' all 'er time focused on gettin' Skye back. I'm no' sayin' she's no' smart, that she isnae a huge help for us, cause she is, but – "

"But working a case like this, when it's someone you know, it eats you alive." Trip reached for his banana chips and tossed one into his mouth. He crunched and swallowed. "I know." He sighed. "We find Skye, and Doctor Simmons will be able to put her life back together."

"We need ta work faster." Fitz swallowed uncomfortably, opening his computer and pulling up the security program for the company. He located Sitwell's ID badge number that Jemma had managed to needle out of his secretary. She had somehow made her think it had something to do with a birthday present. Fitz didn't understand how that could have gone over, but she'd got it for him, and that was all that mattered. He was still logged in to his office computer system, so either he was running late for his meeting, or the meeting had moved here. "Looks like he's still in his office. Ye remember ta bring a camera in case we need pictures?"

"Yeah," Trip patted the console between their seats. "It's in here." He hesitated. "Fitz?"

"Yeah."

"If you really like Doctor Simmons, you should do something about it."

"But –"

"I know it goes against protocol. But this isn't an official case." Trip sighed. "And we don't know how this is all going to turn out or who we're even going to be able to turn it over to at this point. So, you should do something about it."

"Well – okay."

"Okay."

They waited another fifteen minutes in silence and Sitwell still hadn't logged out.

"Ye think I'm safe ta tag his car?" Fitz wondered aloud. "Ye still got a GPS tracker in here?"

"You know I am always prepared with the toys," Trip agreed, pointing to the glove compartment.

Fitz fished around for a minute until he found one, putting the log number into a program on his phone so the signal would be sent to him instead of the police station. "Turn tha bass up really loud on yer radio or somethin' if Sitwell logs out, yeah?"

"Yeah, okay."

It took Fitz all of two minutes to get out of the car, meander up to Sitwell's SUV, hide the tracker in one of the wheel wells, and return to his seat. He didn't even break a sweat.

Several hours later and they were parked across the street from a chintzy French restaurant where Sitwell was presumably having another meeting. Really, it looked like more of a date. The only problem was they couldn't see the person he was having the meeting with. Sitwell was in full view of the window. The person he was animatedly talking to and pointing out things to in the portfolio on the table was hidden behind an artfully decorated column.

"I remember now why I hate stakeouts," Triplett remarked, stifling a yawn.

Fitz halfheartedly held up the camera and snapped another picture, pretty sure that they weren't going to be getting anything on film anyway. This had been a waste of an afternoon. And evening. "Is tha' duck he's eatin'?" He groaned when Trip agreed that it was. "I'm bloody starvin', stuck in a car with ye and yer health food, and he gets ta have roasted duck."

A knock on his window made him jump, almost hitting his head on the ceiling.

"Some bloody detectives we are," he muttered as he gestured to the backseat, unlocking the door.

Triplett craned his head and saw Jemma Simmons slide in behind them, her hair hidden under a black newsboy cap, a dark coat wrapped around her.

"I know I'm not supposed to be here," she began when both of the men attempted to turn around, "but I brought you dinner." She pushed the bag in her hands between them in the front seat. "Lasagna. And there's a mug of coffee. I know you prefer coffee, Detective Triplett. And there's cookies because I got nervous waiting to hear from you, and I've recently discovered I cook when I'm nervous."

Triplett eyed the bag suspiciously, but Fitz dug in, helping himself to a cookie. Triplett wasn't going to yell at him for eating a cookie when it had been brought to them as a present.

"Ye have perfec' timin'. I was jus' sayin' how I'm starvin'. Thank ye."

Jemma grinned in the backseat, seemingly proud of herself.

"How did you know where we were?" Triplett asked, his hand now on the thermos of coffee, watching Fitz devour the cookie in three bites.

"Erm – I'm the one who got you Sitwell's schedule for the day, remember? I just drove to each of the places he was supposed to be until I saw your car." She scrunched her nose up in a kind of apology. "I'm sorry, I'm just not very good at being the person waiting for the results instead of being the person out getting them." Her hands fluttered nervously in her lap.

Fitz and Triplett exchanged a look in the front seat, but neither of them told her to leave.

"Did I miss anything important?"

"Nah. We can't even tell who he's meeting with. Can't see them." Triplett opened the coffee thermos and took a sip.

"Why don't one of you just go inside, pretend to have a reservation?"

She was met with silence.

"You didn't think of that?"

"Well, it's just that this place is more of a romantic couple environment, and we're not really dressed for that," Triplett joked.

"Also, we wouldnae be able to see tha table from tha entrance. 's just our luck they were seated there." Fitz breathed in the aroma of the lasagna he had opened, rooting around in the bag for utensils, finding a fork wrapped up in a napkin.

"You get sauce on my seats, and I will shoot you," Trip said out of the corner of his mouth.

"I thought ye didnae wan' ta deal with tha paperwork."

"This is a nice car."

"It's ten years old."

"Doesn't mean it's not a nice car."

Jemma gave a giggle in the backseat that turned into a cough when Triplett turned around to glare at her. "It's a very nice car," she told him solemnly. "I especially like the Garfield figure clinging to the front window." She pointed to the spot in question and her lip twitched.

"You should like that. My niece gave that to me. It was very thoughtful."

"Garfield would 'ave thanked Jemma fer the lasagna before he ate it all," Fitz said out of the corner of his mouth. "Cat after my own heart, tha' one."

Trip rolled his eyes, but dutifully responded, "Thank you for bringing food to the stakeout that you were not supposed to attend, Doctor Simmons." He then took a container out of the bag, opening it up, and took a bite of the pasta to prove that he appreciated it.

"You're welcome." She paused before mentioning in what Skye often referred to as her "science lecture" voice, "You know, Garfield is such an inaccurate portrayal of a house cat. Most cats develop lactose intolerance as they age. All of that cheese would be horrendous for his digestion. And there is so much starch in the pasta. Not nearly enough protein in lasagna for a cat…" she trailed off when they both looked at her in amusement. "Never mind." She sat forward in the seat, angling herself between them so she could get a better look at Sitwell through the window. "How long has he been there?"

"Over an hour," Triplett remarked. "This is really good, by the way."

"Thanks."

It wasn't long before Sitwell was asking for the check. Jemma hurriedly packed everything back into the bag while Trip started the car and Fitz got the camera ready.

"Come on," Fitz muttered to himself. "Let us see ye."

Jemma worried her lower lip between her teeth while they waited.

When Sitwell came through the front doors though, a large party of women in black dresses followed just behind him, milling around on the sidewalk, laughing loudly and hugging one another goodbye. They couldn't tell who he was speaking with while he nodded his head and leaned down to kiss someone on the cheek before walking away. They couldn't see her face.

"You have got to be kidding me," Triplett said in disbelief, his eyes trying to follow the woman, but there were too many people in the way.

Fitz clicked picture after picture hoping they would be able to see something in one of the photos, but when he clicked back through the images, there was no view of the woman's face.

Jemma sighed from the back before asking, "Are we going to follow Mr. Sitwell?"

"No, I think we're done for the night." Triplett shook his head. "I've got to prep with one of the district attorneys tomorrow. I'm supposed to be testifying in court on Friday. I've got to get some sleep." He ran a hand over his forehead in frustration. "Besides, Fitz put a tracker on Sitwell's car. We'll know where he goes."

"Right, well, I'll talk to you soon then." Jemma nodded her head, grabbed her bag, and opened the car door.

Triplett and Fitz had some sort of silent conversation in the time that she was climbing from the car that resulted in Fitz saying, "Can I ride with ye, Jemma? Trip's goin' in tha opposite direction."

"Oh. Yes. Of course."

-o-

Jemma was quiet most of the car ride, following Fitz's instructions for how to get to his apartment. She asked him if anything in Sitwell's schedule seemed suspicious, and Fitz had to admit that nothing had.

"Well, hopefully we'll know more tomorrow. Maybe he'll, what is it they say in all those police dramas, slip up?" Jemma asked.

"Yes," Fitz agreed, watching her instead of the road now. "That is what they say." She was glowing under the unflattering light from street lamps. Most people would look horrendous under the soft orange light, but Jemma managed to be enchanting instead. How important was breathing again? Did he need to be remembering how to do that while watching her drive?

"Is it true?"

"'s wha' true?"

"That's how most criminals are caught. They make a mistake."

"Depends on tha criminal, tha type o' crime really." Fitz drummed his fingers on the cup holder between them, giving his mind a point of contact to focus on instead of the way Jemma pursed her lips or furrowed her brows as she digested new information. "Some people donnae know how ta get rid o' physical evidence, and tha's how ye can catch 'em, but it's always hard to have a tech or a scientis' explain tha' kind o' evidence ta a jury. Juries like witnesses more than anythin' else, even if they arenae as reliable."

Jemma nodded her head. "I guess I can understand that."

"But yer a scientis'."

"Yes, but people want to trust other people, not scientific procedures."

He looked back outside when she glanced over at him, realizing where they were almost too late, and gestured for her to make a right at the next light, pointing out his building as she did.

"This is me," he told her needlessly, since she was already slowing to a stop per his instructions.

"That was faster than I expected," Jemma admitted with a rueful smile. Her fingers clenched on the steering wheel, and she twisted her hands around the circle nervously.

Fitz was tempted to ask her to drive around the block again, maybe several times, but instead, he cleared his throat and offered, "Ye could come up for a cup o' tea?"

Jemma's smile widened, and she took in a breath as though she would agree, but when she shook her head regretfully, he made sure not to frown. "I shouldn't keep you up. You've been very nice, checking on me, staying with me, but you've got your test tomorrow. You need a proper night's sleep. Probably not on a couch. Or with someone." She blanched as she realized what words had just tumbled from her mouth. "That's not what I meant." She covered her face with her hands and shook her head again.

Fitz silently laughed. "'S alright. I understand." He paused, hand on the door handle. "Thank ye fer the dinner. Trip would've let me starve."

"Sure." Jemma lowered her hands and peered at him over the tips of her fingers. "Any time."

They both nodded, probably looking like a couple of bobble head dolls to anyone who passed them by.

"Let me know when ye get home safe, alright?"

"Alright."

He nodded again, not sure what else to say, and turned to open the passenger door.

"Fitz?"

"Hmm?"

He turned back toward her, only to find her leaning over the middle of the seat and pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. "Good luck on your test," she whispered against his skin before pulling back from him.

"Yeah, thanks."

He couldn't stop himself from grinning all the way up to his front door.

-o-

"Alright, Skye. It's day seven, and John is getting very antsy at your lack of progress." Raina sat down at the table across from Skye in the seat usually occupied by Grant.

"Where's Grant?"

"Don't worry about him. He'll be back later." Raina smiled at her, the smile of a woman who knew all your secrets. It made Skye shift in her seat as she typed. "You like him."

"Yeah, sure, for a psychopath that kidnaps people, he's great."

Raina gave a small laugh. "It's all right to like him. Grant isn't a bad person, you know. He just does what's required of him. He's very loyal."

"Like abducting people."

"It was a last resort. We were on a bit of a time crunch. If he'd had a better window, we would have asked you to join us."

"Weirdly, that makes me feel a little bit better," Skye lied. "I thought he was just using me." Her mind raced to figure out what kind of deadline they were on. Did they need the drug by a certain day? Or could they only steal it on a certain day?

"Oh, no. Your reputation was what made him notice you, but when he was tasked with keeping an eye on you and another candidate, he chose you."

"Really?"

"Really."

Skye forced herself to smile, like a schoolgirl with a crush. She needed them to think that she wasn't still trying to find a way out of this mess, though she knew she had stalled long enough. It was time to tell them the truth about the computer system in place at Furious Pharmaceuticals.

"I figured out why the system keeps kicking me out."

"Oh?"

"Parts of the company have an open network, but the top secret projects, the executive's private computers, they're all on a closed network."

"You're going to have to tell me what that means, Skye. I'm smart, but I'm not as good with computers as you are."

"It means I need to be in the building, on one of their computers. Preferably, the boss's computer."

"In the building?" Raina echoed. She grinned like a cat that ate the canary. "John is not going to like that."

"Does that mean no?" Skye was confused.

"No. It just means I'll have to convince him to let you come. We're going to have so much fun, Skye."

Skye stopped herself just short of asking if she could have her promised phone call now. She had a feeling she was going to have to wait.

-o-

Fitz poured himself a cup of coffee, trying to tune out the sounds around him of detectives on the phone tracking down witnesses, placing bets with one another on the number of cases they could close, and the general background sound of clicking fingers on keyboards, ringing phones, scratching pens, and scanners alerting them to dispatch calls. This place was loud enough on the best of days, but when you got no sleep the night before, it seemed to be worse, everything echoing and compounding like he was suffering from a hangover.

He didn't have the mental capacity to prepare himself a proper cup of tea this morning. On top of being out for the stakeout, he found he couldn't make himself fall asleep until he knew Jemma was home, no strange people there with her. It wasn't lost on him that whomever Skye was currently with knew where Jemma lived. And he hadn't been able to stop with just a simple good night message either. He wasn't much of a television person, but he had flipped through channels, finding an old science special on DNA that was so cheesy, he couldn't believe it had ever been made. He and Jemma had texted back and forth about the ridiculous program for over an hour. She used a lot more smiley faces than he did, but he couldn't stop himself from grinning at each and every one of them.

He added more sugar than could ever have been necessary into the mug and took it over to his desk. With a sigh, he opened up his computer, and began to quickly scroll through all of Sitwell's activity from after their stakeout. His car had gone to what looked like a bank before heading to a parking garage, probably one near his home. That wasn't too unusual. But after parking in the garage, about an hour later Fitz noticed, Sitwell's ID card was used to open the loading dock at Furious Pharmaceuticals.

What, did he switch cars and go back? That didn't make any sense. Unless he suspected someone was following him.

Sipping his coffee, Fitz started to think, and began systematically comparing Sitwell's credit card usage, ID log ins and outs, and tracked his car during the time they had been monitoring him. Something was definitely going on. There were a handful of times that it didn't match up. It could be a glitch in the system, but Fitz didn't think so.

Three hours later, he looked at the clock. That couldn't be right. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket, but the time was exactly the same. Damn. He had missed the detective's exam. Again.

Trip was going to kill him. If Hand didn't get to him first.

Fitz slipped the phone back in his pocket, glancing around surreptitiously, seeing if anyone noticed that he was still there. No one was paying him any attention. He shut down his computer, grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, and swiftly left the squad room. He wasn't going to listen to the ribbing about him missing the exam again. He had better things to do.

-o-


	5. Chapter 5

-o-

Part Five

-o-

Every time his phone alerted him to an incoming call or a text message, Fitz jumped, then ignored it. By the time the evening rolled around and he was supposed to be keeping tabs on Sitwell again, he had missed two calls from the precinct, probably from the captain herself, and half a dozen from Trip. He couldn't bring himself to listen to the voice mails.

Trip finally texted him with a curt message about having another meeting with the District Attorney. He had to testify the next day, and Fitz was in charge of the stakeout for the evening. It said something to the effect of Fitz needing to stop acting like a dumbass too, but Fitz chose to ignore that part of it as well. Instead, he called Jemma to see if she wanted to spy on her boss with him.

When he pulled up outside her apartment building, a blond woman wearing heavy makeup, huge sunglasses, and a khaki trench coat made a beeline for his car. When she climbed into the front seat next to him, he had to stifle a laugh.

"What the bloody hell are ye wearin'?"

"A disguise."

"Ye do realize we're jus' goin' ta be in tha car, right?"

"Yes, but you do realize that we're going to spy _on my boss _that I spent a very awkward few minutes up close and personal with in an elevator so Detective Triplett could get in his office, right?"

"Tha sun will be down soon. Ye donnae need tha sunglasses," Fitz said, reaching up and removing them from her face. "Better," he mumbled, smiling at the thick eyeliner and bright red lips she was sporting as her disguise. He didn't ask why she needed the eyeliner when she had been wearing the oversized sunglasses. "Yer probably goin' ta be uncomfortable in the coat after a while too."

"I'll leave it on for now," she told him, taking her sunglasses from him and dropping them in her bag, her cheeks pink when he finally turned his attention back to traffic and pulled the car out.

Jemma opened Fitz's laptop, balancing it on her knees, after he parked them a few spaces back from Sitwell's car, just as he and Triplett had done the day before. "What exactly are we looking for?"

It was a little disconcerting hearing her voice coming from underneath the platinum blond curtain of hair, but Fitz ignored that, and pointed out the different programs she would need to open, his shoulder resting against hers on the console.

"This one is a duplicate security system. See here," Fitz pointed, leaning closer, feeling the pressure of her arm against his, "this is Sitwell's ID badge. It's active. He's logged in at tha computer in his office, probably finishin' up fer the day. This program here," he gestured to another button on the screen, "this tracks his company credit card use. See?"

"He had lunch at that café up the street," Jemma said.

"Right." Fitz peered at her out of the corner of his eye, but she was focused on the screen in front of her. "This program," he pointed out one more piece of the Sitwell surveillance system, "logs everywhere the car goes."

They both skimmed through the route list, and Fitz quickly typed in a few commands, fully aware that it meant his hands were basically in her lap, but Jemma didn't seem particularly uncomfortable with that, so he tried not to worry about it. A map popped up on the screen, showing them exactly where Sitwell had driven since the last time Fitz had opened up the program.

"Is this his home, then?" Jemma asked, pointing at the black dot that indicated the starting point on the map. She turned to look at him for confirmation and found their noses just inches apart.

"Yes," Fitz breathed, nodding his head. He swallowed, but he didn't look back to the computer screen until she did.

"So then," Jemma struggled to stay focused, his proximity making her head swim, "he stopped at a bakery, then came into work, went to lunch, came back." She shook her head. "Nothing unusual."

"No, nothin'."

"What if I was wrong?" she asked in a small voice.

"Then it's a lead we followed tha' didnae pan out. Happens all tha time." When she didn't have a response to that, just looked even more upset, Fitz nudged her with his elbow. "Really. Ye 'ave ta get rid o' tha things tha donnae make sense in order ta get ta tha real bad guys."

Jemma made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"Yer quite tha Sherlock Holmes fan, huh?"

"I think he's an interesting character, yes. A fascinating detective."

"Uh huh."

Jemma turned to face him again, leaning her cheek against the back of the seat and shifting her legs so he could easily access the laptop. "I do not develop _feelings _for fictional characters," she told him primly.

"O' course no'," he answered with a cheeky grin, "tha' would be strange, yeah?"

She responded with her own grin. "I think everyone has their own favorite fictional detective. You work in the business, you must have one." She poked him playfully. "Who is it?"

He only made a halfhearted attempt at pushing her hand away. "Ye 'ave ta promise no' ta laugh at me."

"Oooh, this sounds like it's going to be a good one." She clapped her hands together in delight.

"I'm serious," Fitz said, trying to keep his face straight. "No laughin'."

"No laughing."

Fitz cleared his throat, gaze focused on the slight curve of her smile and the way her eyes were shining at him. For someone who was sitting in a car on a stakeout, she looked remarkably happy. "Ye ever see tha' old American series _Murder, She Wrote_?"

Jemma's eyes danced as she giggled. Full on giggled. Like a schoolgirl gossiping with friends about cute boys.

"Ye said ye wouldnae laugh!" Fitz protested with his own chuckle. Her laugh was infectious.

"Angela Lansbury plays your favorite fictional detective? Jessica Fletcher, mystery novelist, is your favorite fictional detective?" Jemma dissolved into giggles again. "That's adorable."

"I jus' think it's pretty great tha' someone's grandmother is out there bringin' villains ta justice. Everyone underestimates 'er."

"Mmm." Jemma's giggles slowly subsided. "That is pretty great." She tore her gaze away from him to take a quick peek at the laptop, making sure they hadn't missed Sitwell on the move. When his number was still logged in at the same spot on the grid, she met Fitz's eyes again. "So… what else does Doctor Fitz like?"

They spent two hours discussing anything and everything. Jemma learned that his mom was the only family Fitz had, that his first name was Leopold (how had she gone an entire week without learning his first name?), and that he had a healthy interest in monkeys. Fitz learned that Jemma was an only child, that she had thought about becoming a veterinarian as a kid, and that even though she was far too old for them, she still liked to read fairy tales. Somewhere along the way she had removed the trench coat as well, tossing it into the backseat.

He was in the middle of telling her about the time he broke his arm when he was eight years old when he noticed a blip on the computer.

"What?" she asked when he abruptly stopped talking.

"Looks like yer boss is on tha move."

Jemma leaned closer to him, peering at the screen. Sitwell had just logged off the network and activated the elevator. But just as his ID badge activated the elevator, another blip appeared on the screen at a completely different spot on the grid.

"Fitz, how can Sitwell be accessing the elevator and the door to the loading dock at the same time?"

"He cannae."

They watched the dots on the screen.

"This doesn't make any sense," Jemma exclaimed. "Which one is really him?"

"We'll 'ave ta wait an' see who comes out tha front door," Fitz began, but then he shook his head as he worked through the problem at hand with breakneck speed, "No, tha person at tha loading dock, tha cannae be Sitwell. Sitwell came back from lunch, went back ta his office, so tha one comin' down tha elevator is definitely him." He moved into position and started the car back up.

"Fitz?"

"We're goin' ta find out who else has got his access. Someone could jus' be usin' Sitwell's information ta get in an' out o' the buildin'."

Jemma nodded, moving the laptop back to her knees and straightening up in her seat. "Pull around the left side of the building. There's an alley that goes through to the next street. You'll be able to see the dock without getting too close."

Fitz did as he was told, cutting the lights before they could flash down the street, and pulling the car neatly behind another parked vehicle that had a trio of parking tickets on it. No one was getting in _that_ car.

Ahead of them, the door to the loading dock was open, a security guard standing outside, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips. He was young, almost too young to be working a job like this.

"Ye recognize 'im?"

"No." Jemma shook her head. "But Fitz, he's just a kid."

"Donnae mistake youth fer innocence, Jemma."

"Jessica Fletcher would never," Jemma agreed with a sly smile, keeping her eyes on the young man at the door. She probably shouldn't be teasing him, but the entire idea of Fitz curled up in bed with a bowl of popcorn watching Angela Lansbury solve murders between typing out novels was too good to resist.

In spite of the circumstances, Fitz laughed.

"Do you think he's waiting for someone, or is he really taking a smoke break?"

A car pulled up from the other side.

"I guess tha' answers tha' question."

A man got out of the car, and even from far away, Jemma thought he looked vaguely familiar. He only spoke with the kid for a few minutes, shaking his head, the kid passing over a portable hard drive before the man got back in and drove away. It was a very quick exchange.

"I think I've seen him before," Jemma whispered, "the guy in the car, but I don't know where." She wracked her brain, trying to place him, but nothing was coming to mind. Just as the kid put his cigarette out on the concrete and tucked it back into the pack in his pocket, he seemed to glance in their direction. "Fitz… I think he sees us."

"Ye said they wouldnae see us here, we're fine."

But the young man in the security uniform started walking their way, a flashlight in hand. He was quickly closing the distance between the door and Fitz's car.

"We should leave," Jemma bit out in a panic. "What if he knows who I am? I work here, Fitz. I can't get caught sneaking around the alley in the middle of the night!"

"We leave an' we look more suspicious," Fitz told her, turning inward, placing a hand on her arm, and snapping the laptop shut. He moved it to the floor by her feet before glancing back and forth between her and the security guard, knowing one very easy way to get out of this. "Ye trus' me, right?"

"Of course, but – "

Jemma was cut off by him pulling her closer and placing his mouth over hers. She made a small noise of protest before she knew what was happening, wanting him to tell her his plan, sure that kissing was _not_ a good plan right now, but when his hand reached up to cup her cheek, she relaxed into his touch, focusing on the dizzying feeling his kiss produced instead of the potential problem walking toward them. When he pulled back just slightly to take a breath, she did something she had wanted to since the first night he'd showed up at her door with a pile of files, following his mouth and pulling at the lower lip that he was always biting, not letting him get too far. She felt him smile against her lips before he began kissing her in earnest, one arm sliding around her waist to bring her even closer to him. Up against the middle console of the car's front seat already though, there wasn't much closer she could move without sliding into his lap, and she didn't think he was intending for that to happen. Instead, she reached up and gripped the collar of his shirt, just as the light of the flashlight swept over them and a harsh knock hit the driver's side window.

Jemma let out a shaky breath as Fitz simultaneously rolled down his window with one hand and used the other to push Jemma back and into his shoulder just enough that she was obscured from the line of sight of the guard.

"Kin I bloody well 'elp ye?" Fitz asked, mustering up a thicker accent than usual, lacing his tone with annoyance. That always seemed to throw people off, playing up the stereotype of the angry Scotsman. It wasn't that hard under the circumstances. "Me fiancée an' I're tryin' ta celebrate!" He hoped this kid wasn't going to ask what they were celebrating or why they were doing it in an alley. He wasn't sure he could come up with an answer to that right now, not with Jemma's fingers playing with the buttons on his shirt, keeping up their charade with fingernails grazing his chest with gentle pressure through the material, or with her breath ghosting over his neck every few seconds as she struggled to catch her breath.

"Um, I'm sorry, sir." The kid, his nametag read Seth, said, shuffling his feet, the light from the flashlight bouncing around as he did. Fitz had the fleeting impression that he'd seen this kid before, but with darker hair and a scowling expression, in one of his missing person's files. "You can't park here." He was clearly trying not to fall apart in laughter. "This is private property."

"Fine!" Fitz snapped out, catching his own reflection in the side view mirror. Good lord, did Jemma _have _to wear red lipstick? It was everywhere. No wonder this kid was a few steps away from hysterical laughter. "We're leavin'." He waved his hand angrily to indicate that Seth should back away from the car, and as soon as he began to walk toward the building, Fitz backed his car up and turned onto the main street. "Jesus," he muttered, not sure if the word was a result of the adrenaline coursing through his veins at almost getting caught, or the lust clouding his judgment since he still had one arm wrapped around Jemma, tucking her awkwardly against him. He cautiously untangled himself from her, not looking at her until he was pulling into a gas station parking lot a few miles away.

"That was very smart, quick thinking," she finally said, slowly turning to face him again, her face feeling as though it was on fire.

"Yes. Thank ye. Ye improvised well." He inwardly cringed at his words. He sounded like an instructor at the Police Academy approving of her technique.

"Fiancée though?"

"Sounded like tha mos' – respectful – option."

When he met her eyes, they both burst into laughter.

"Does my lipstick look as bad as yours?" Jemma asked between bouts.

"Yes," Fitz nodded his head emphatically, smiling widely. "'s actually a _nice _color on ye," he offered, "maybe a little messy though."

She ducked her head, shoulders shaking with laughter, and picked her bag up from the floor, searching for tissues or napkins, anything to get the ridiculous red smeared across Fitz's face off. "Here," she said, still giggling when she glanced up at him, "let me see."

She gripped his chin with one hand, her heart fluttering when his eyes met hers, and she forced herself to keep focused on the bright red surrounding his mouth. Not that it helped much since it meant she was spending her time staring at his lips, which she now didn't have to wonder about – she knew they were just as amazing as she thought. She used a tissue to gently swipe at the pigment on his skin, but it wasn't doing much good, so she shrugged, licked a corner of the tissue, and wiped again, watching with satisfaction as the red appeared on the fabric instead. When she dropped her hands to her lap, Fitz reached forward and grabbed one of the other tissues, doing the same for her, though it took him much less time.

"Yers wasnae as bad as mine after all," he breathed as he made one final pass of the tissue just under her bottom lip, his thumb grazing it in the process.

"Well," Jemma tried to tease him, "I am rather used to being the one wearing the lipstick," but she couldn't think with his fingers on her skin and his mouth so close to hers.

He didn't say anything for a moment, but there was the hint of a smile on his face as he reached up and pulled the blond wig from her head. Jemma tried to smooth down her own hair which had been haphazardly tucked beneath it, attempting to surreptitiously wipe a line of sweat from her forehead.

"Thanks. That was hot." Her cheeks pinked further. "The wig. I mean the wig. Obviously. Not – this is –"

"Better," Fitz whispered, tossing the wig in the backseat with her coat, and tucking a few unruly strands of hair back into place for her. He nodded. "Much better."

"So I shouldn't make the blond a permanent change?" she attempted to joke again, to lighten the weight that had settled around them in the car.

"Nah. 's no' ye." He settled back into his seat, placing his hands back on the steering wheel. "I guess I should be gettin' ye home."

"Oh. Right." Jemma nodded her head in agreement. "We should do that instead of sitting in a parking lot."

"No' tha' this hasnae been good – I mean – It's been fun? No, wait, I – nevermind."

Jemma pursed her lips to stop the smile that was threatening to split her face in half. She didn't have to try so hard to stop her smile though once Fitz explained who he thought the security guard was.

"You think he's one of those missing kids? But if they have someone working security, what do they need with Sitwell?"

"They donnae need him. Maybe they needed his codes to access files, but now –"

"They're setting him up. Whatever it is they're planning on stealing, they're setting him up to take the fall. His name will be all over their access logs. That's brilliant. Awful, but brilliant. _I'd_ believe he stole from the company."

-o-

Instead of dropping her off at her building as he had planned, Fitz found a parking space and walked Jemma up under the pretense of wanting to look at the white board with her list of missing people on it. She had added the most recent photos she could find, and he wanted to determine if Seth was really _Seth. _It had nothing to do with the knowledge that she tasted like chamomile tea or that she made the smallest of groans when he had stopped kissing her. It had nothing to do with wanting to be alone with Jemma for just a little bit longer. At least, that's what he told himself.

Sitting outside her front door, feet stretched out in front of him, effectively killing whatever mood there had been, was Detective Triplett.

"Let me guess," he drawled as they got off the elevator, "you both had your phones off while on your stakeout?"

"Oops," Jemma tried, shrugging her shoulders, her eyes wide.

"What is all that?" Triplett asked, gesturing to Jemma's face. He didn't think he'd ever seen her with that much makeup on before.

"My disguise." She held up her blond wig and trench coat for good measure. "I didn't want anyone to recognize me."

"Smart." Triplett managed to crack a smile at that as he climbed to his feet, and Jemma unlocked the door with another murmured apology, letting them all into her apartment. He eyed Fitz suspiciously as he walked by him.

"Okay, I was all set to yell at you for missing your test again, but Fitzy, is that lipstick you're wearing? A _dark red_ lipstick?" Trip poked the spot just above Fitz's lip where there was a line of red that Jemma had missed in the darkness of the parking lot.

Fitz jerked away from him, wiping at his lip with the back of his hand.

"It was a cover – "

"I'm sorry, I thought I got it all."

Triplett glanced back and forth between the two of them. "You know what, I don't need to know." He was still smiling though, and when his eyes strayed to Jemma's lipstick, he gave a little laugh. He resisted the urge to comment on their now adorably matching pink complexions.

"Wait a minute," Jemma turned on Fitz as he locked the door to her apartment, her thoughts catching up to what Triplett had originally said, "you missed your exam today? You never said anything! Fitz –"

"Probably too busy kissing you," Triplett commented under his breath, edging his way into the kitchen and putting on a pot of coffee like it was his own kitchen. Since he had been sitting outside Doctor Simmons' door for over an hour and had got dirty looks from two different neighbors before he flashed his badge at them, he was feeling entitled to a nice cup of coffee. He didn't care if it was going to keep him up and he was going to be irritable when he had to testify in court tomorrow. Besides, he spent almost as much time in this apartment as he had his own for the last week.

"I know, I know!"

"How many times have you missed taking the exam?"

"Erm –"

"This is his third," Triplett called. "Tell him he can't miss the next one!" They might not have known Doctor Simmons for very long, but he already knew this was the one person who was going to make Fitz realize that taking this test was important.

"You really can't miss the next one, Fitz." Her voice was soft, and Trip shot a glance over his shoulder to see Fitz leaning against the other side of the counter, Doctor Simmons (maybe he really should start thinking of her as Jemma now) standing far too close to him to be deemed simply as friendly. Seriously, how much had gone on at this stakeout? "How many tests can you not take before they decide you're not going to be a detective?"

"I dunnae." He ran one hand over his face in frustration. "I was so focused on Sitwell this morning, some of tha trackers didnae make sense, and I lost track o' time. I didnae mean ta miss it. Really."

"When can he take the next one?" Jemma directed her words to Triplett without looking away from Fitz.

Their eyes had locked, and Triplett was starting to feel like he was intruding. "Another month. The Academy offers it once a month," he informed her.

"So, you _have _to take it next month, no matter what happens." Jemma tapped his arm with the tips of her fingers. "You're a brilliant detective, Fitz. Promise me you'll take it."

"I promise."

"Good."

-o-

The next day, with Fitz at work being forced to tend to the evidence room until he was allowed to participate in active cases again, and Triplett spending his day in court waiting for his turn to testify as an arresting officer, Jemma found she couldn't sit still. She would read the information on one white board, the little star next to Seth's name sticking out at her as she did, and then she would move on to the next.

She sipped a cup of tea and tracked Sitwell's movements on the laptop Fitz had left with her. She leafed through a few of the copies of paper files they had left at her apartment. Then, she paced, and she started the process all over again.

She knew this wasn't good for her. She knew that Fitz was right and that she should go back to work. But going back to work meant working alongside people who might have been planted there by Lake Lerna Industries. And it wasn't as though she was going to be very productive; these days there were only two things she could concentrate on – the search for Skye and the way Fitz looked at her. And she could only do something about one of those things right now.

Jemma walked the length of the boards again before plopping back down on her couch and opening up the GPS tracker and the duplicated security system. She wanted to see what Sitwell was up to today. To her surprise, he wasn't at his usual office at Furious Pharmaceuticals. Instead, his code was being used in one of the lower level labs. An archive facility, where abandoned projects were stored.

She had an idea.

Jemma rifled through her bag, searching for the last few files she had been working with when she put in for sick leave. One of those files had included a list of abandoned research projects from the last six months. Once she had finished her data entry on the more successful research projects, she was supposed to be a member of the team analyzing the components of those drugs, determining if they could be applied to different illnesses. She had never gotten around to that part of the files.

"Here we go," Jemma muttered, finding the thinnest of the files. There were five different research projects outlined in it, all abandoned because they were deemed too dangerous to use, but the chemical formulas could be worth a fortune to the right person. She set herself down in the middle of the couch and started to read. "Which one of you is it?"

After reading through the thin bits of information outlined in the files though, Jemma had a problem. She needed the details of the research to figure out which ones were more important. And there was only one place she could get _all _of the research. She groaned, pulled on a sweater and a pair of shoes, and headed out, shooting a text message to Fitz as she rode the elevator down to the lobby.

He wasn't happy as his response in all uppercase letters indicated. But she kept going, sending him a smiling face and assurances that she would be fine.

When Jemma walked inside Furious Pharmaceuticals, she pulled the clip from her hair, allowing it to obscure her face, and moved quickly by the security desk at the front where Seth was sitting. She took the stairs instead of an elevator, up just two floors, and she was in the mostly deserted archive department. File cabinets upon file cabinets greeted her. This was where the drugs that didn't have to be electronically catalogued had all of their research stored. The drugs themselves would be in the refrigeration vault, carefully kept under lock and key and fancy software, but Jemma would worry about that when the time came. Instead, she pulled her list from her pocket and hit the filing cabinets.

-o-

"Skye, I've got good news," Raina was practically purring when she unlocked the door to what had become Skye's bedroom.

"You do?" Skye tried her best to appear eager and happy to see Raina, like the two were now the best of friends.

"I do." Raina smoothed her hands over the skirt of her black dress with the large red roses printed on it. "John has agreed to let you come on the job with me and Grant. Isn't that exciting?"

"Yay!" Skye even jumped up off the bed and gave a little hop of excitement to show the proper enthusiasm.

"And, if you'd still like to call your old roommate, John thinks it's a good idea for you to let her know you're okay."

"Okay." Skye went completely numb, but she kept the smile on her face. She had wanted a chance to call Jemma, to warn her about what was happening, but she still hadn't worked out exactly what she was going to say to her.

"Come with me."

-o-

"Are ye bloody insane?"

Fitz and Triplett were standing outside her building waiting for her when she walked up. Triplett, for his part, had a bag of takeout from an Indian place in his hands, and appeared perfectly relaxed. Fitz looked like he was ready to punch a hole in the wall.

"Excuse me?"

"Are ye insane?" He repeated, following her inside. "Ye shouldnae have gone in there alone."

"I work there, Fitz. What was I supposed to do? Have someone else break in and steal the files I needed when I could just access them myself?" She hissed at him, trying to keep her voice down as they waited for the elevator.

"One o' us could 'ave come with ye!"

"I'm fine. See?" She grabbed his hand and squeezed as though proving she was there and real, but Fitz didn't relax. "_You_ told me to go back to work."

"Tha' was before."

"I went back to work."

"It was a bad idea ta go in there alone."

"You and Trip have jobs to do. This is my job. Well, kind of."

"Ye got Trip in before –"

"That was different. We didn't know what we were looking for –"

"An' now we know tha' _they're_ lookin' fer somethin' there –"

"That reminds me, Seth was at the security desk. You were right about that."

"Bloody Seth, see?"

"But I know what they're after. And I know where it is."

"Wha'?

"Hydromorphodiazecodone."

Fitz stared at her like she had three heads. "That doesn't exist."

"No, it's just not on the market because it's dangerous."

The elevator dinged, doors opening, and the three of them stepped inside. Triplett pushed the button to get to Jemma's floor, not interjecting into this conversation. He wasn't about to get involved. This didn't really feel like a witness overstepping her bounds kind of argument. They had all overstepped enough bounds at this point that it couldn't be an issue anymore. This felt more like an overprotective boyfriend scared for his girlfriend argument. Not that the two of them were even dating. _Not yet._

"How's it dangerous? Wha's it for?"

"It was developed as this treatment to block the pain receptors in MS patients, but it did its job _too well_. It's like every pain medicine that's ever existed, all rolled into one. It doesn't just block neurological pain. It stops the physical _and emotional_ sensations associated with pain, blocking several different kinds of neural receptors at once. It's like a dopamine overload. People are in a perpetual state of false happiness as a result."

"Perpetual happiness doesnae sound so bad," Fitz remarked off hand. "No' like gettin' caught by possible kidnappers on yer way home from work."

Trip was, he decided while half-listening, willing to give it a few more days before telling them to just go out on a real date already and put him out of his misery. He tapped his foot while the elevator climbed, and he was the first one out the doors when they opened on Jemma's floor.

"Fitz," Jemma said softly as the two of them trailed behind him. "I was careful. No one even talked to me. No one noticed I was there."

"Yer sure?"

"I'm sure."

She unlocked the door, dropping her keys back into her purse and leading them into the kitchen.

"And that false happiness, no pain? Think about it. You could break your foot and not realize because you don't feel the pain. It could cause serious damage. You wouldn't understand what it meant to have a broken heart, or appreciate falling in love because you've never experienced loss. There's no emotional high to reach because you're already there. Nothing would be real. You would never feel the need to question something that could hurt."

"But people would be docile without any o' tha pain tha' leads ta sadness or anger," Fitz cut in, realizing what she was getting at. "It would be cult-like behavior on a massive scale. They could almos' control tha way people act."

"Exactly. If they figured out how to properly administer it, the right dosage, there's no telling what they could do."

"You two done yet?" Triplett asked, stopping this line of thinking before it could curb his appetite. "Because I brought curry. And it's amazing. We should eat before we hear any more about this crazy drug and a plan to rule the world."

"Hydromorphodiazecodone," Fitz and Simmons said in unison.

The strains of an old nineties pop song began to echo through her apartment and Jemma jumped at the unexpected sound.

"You have an alarm set on your radio or something?" Triplett asked, his hand immediately going to his holster at the sudden noise.

Jemma shook her head mutely. Triplett gestured for her and Fitz to stay put in the kitchen as he crept purposefully toward the sound. It was coming from Skye's room. Jemma reached out, unthinking, and grabbed onto Fitz's arm in fear.

"Stay here," he muttered to her, squeezing her hand before removing it.

"What?" she hissed as he began to walk away. "No!" She grabbed onto his sleeve and tugged. "You are not leaving me alone! What if there's someone back there?"

"Ye don' think Trip might need backup?"

"What if it's just a distraction?" She pulled him in closer. "Someone could be luring you to the back so they can come in the front door?"

"There was no one in tha hall outside."

"It's Skye's phone," Triplett called to them. "A call's coming in from a blocked line."

Jemma hastily let go of Fitz's shirtsleeve while he smiled reassuringly at her. "Ye need to answer it," he told her. "It could be tha people who have Skye."

She nodded her head as Triplett came back into the room. Fitz began dialing on his own cell phone, explaining to someone on the other end that they had a number and they needed to know who was calling it. He nodded at Triplett.

"Keep them on the phone as long as you can, okay Jemma?"

"Okay."

Triplett slid the screen to answer the call, hitting the speaker button immediately after, holding it in front of him so Jemma could talk.

"Hello?" She hated the way her voice squeaked and wobbled. She wanted to sound confident. She wanted these people to think that she wasn't afraid of them. Mostly she just wanted to know that Skye was all right.

"Jemma? Thank god. I wasn't sure if you were going to be able to answer or not. I couldn't remember where I left my phone."

Jemma gripped the counter in front of her, her face slack with shock. "Skye?" She recovered quickly, forcing her brain to make the cognitive leap that Skye was alive and had access to a phone and was talking to her. "Where are you? Are you okay? What – "

"I don't have a lot of time to talk. I just wanted to let you know that I'm _fine_. I'm on a job. It was very last minute. I didn't even have time to grab my stuff. I didn't want you to worry."

"You didn't want me to worry," Jemma repeated in disbelief, hands balling into fists. Skye was lying to her. She could hear it in her voice. It was strained, pulled as tight as a rubber band about to snap. Someone was there with her. Listening. They must have been. She wasn't out on her own. She was still in trouble. "You shouldn't have just left then – "

Triplett had been gesturing for her to keep the conversation going, but now he was lowering his hand in front of him, indicating Jemma needed to find a way to tone it down.

"I _was_ worried. I hadn't heard from you. Do you need me to bring you anything? Send you anything?"

"No, nope. We're well stocked here. _They're_ taking good care of me."

"Oh. Are you sure? I don't mind." Jemma pressed, knowing she was pushing her luck, but she needed something from Skye. Her roommate wasn't giving them anything to go on. They needed a clue. Even something cryptic. "I can – "

"Yep. Yeah. I'm _fine._" There was a rustling on the other end and Jemma could hear Skye's muffled voice asking for just a little more time. "God Jemma, you sound really tense though. You've got to _loosen up _a little bit. You're probably working harder than I am, like usual. You know what you need?"

"Skye – "

"_You really need to get laid_."

Jemma closed her eyes at the insistence in Skye's tone and tried to ignore the two detectives who were staring at her. God, what were they going to think? What was Skye thinking?

"Skye, I don't think – "

"No, Jemma, seriously. How long has it been? Not since that Mike guy last year, right? Don't you remember? I gave you that thing for when you really _need a good screw_? Use it."

Jemma's eyes popped open in understanding. "Okay. Yeah. You're right. I'll – I'll do that."

Across from her, Agent Triplett was biting down hard on his bottom lip, trying desperately not to laugh. This was not the kind of phone call most people got in a kidnapping situation. Fitz's mouth was open in shock, and his eyes kept darting from the phone to Triplett to Jemma, as though he wasn't entirely sure how he was supposed to react to the conversation they were listening to.

"Good. Don't worry about me. Have some fun. Get into some _shenanigans._ I'll see you soon, Jems, okay?"

The line went dead.

"Anything?" Fitz whispered into his phone. He shook his head at Triplett as he disconnected his own call.

The three of them stood very still for a moment, no one saying anything.

Triplett was the first to comment. "Do we need to leave so you can be alone with Skye's present? I could go pick you up some spare batteries. Or did you want to stay, Fitzy? Cause – " He was cut off as Fitz hit him in the shoulder, pretending to be in pain from the sudden blow.

Jemma snapped her gaze up to him in confusion, then realized what he was referring to, her cheeks heating in embarrassment. She groaned at Skye's method of getting her point across. "Skye was just –"

Fitz smirked, and if it was possible, her face became an even darker shade of red and she stopped talking altogether.

"Been a while then, Jemma?"

"Like you're any better," Triplett teased him.

Fitz cleared his throat, turning the tide of the conversation before anyone else said anything too embarrassing. "Well, obviously, that was a code, right? Strange one, but a code, yeah?"

Jemma nodded, trying to shake off the heat on her skin. "Where are my keys?" she muttered. She ran from the kitchen to the table by the front door, but her keys weren't in the dish there.

"Your keys?" Fitz asked as he followed her. "I think ye dropped 'em back in yer bag."

Running back into the kitchen, she rummaged around in her bag, listening for the tell-tale sound of the small pieces of metal hitting against one another. When she fished them out of her bag, the detectives both nodded their heads at the bright pink screwdriver dangling from her key ring.

"I didn't even date Mike. Or sleep with him for that matter," she told the two of them. "Not that it should matter…" She cleared her throat, not looking at Fitz as she added, "He lived down the hall with his son, Skye and I used to watch Ace for him, and in exchange he did some repairs for us. When they moved upstate, Skye bought the screwdriver for me as a joke." She removed the screwdriver from her key ring very carefully and placed it on the countertop. "I'm not sure why, but this is what she wanted me to find."

"A screwdriver," Trip asked, shaking his head. "Your roommate is a little odd. But at least now we know that someone is keeping her. She's not doing this on her own."

Jemma narrowed her eyes at him. "Not that we thought she was doing this on her own before, right?"

"No," Trip agreed, "but you know we have to consider all the possibilities. Part of the way the job works."

Jemma relaxed slightly and watched Fitz who was staring at the screwdriver, lost in thought. "What do you think?" she questioned him.

"Ye sure this is jus' a screwdriver?"

He reached across the counter, picking it up from in front of Jemma, weighing it in the palm of his hand. Jemma didn't answer him, just observed, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as he ran the tool between his fingers, trying to find something special about it. His fingers worked more delicately than she had seen, moving effortlessly over the material of the screwdriver, pushing and pulling, testing the material. He gently ran the tip of one finger over the handle. She wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he must have found it because the tip of his finger pressed more firmly against the tool and he bit his own lip in concentration, humming to himself. She sucked in a breath.

She had just spoken with her missing roommate for the first time in over a week. He was examining a screwdriver. She should not be turned on right now. _No._

His fingers gently moved over the pink surface, one fingernail scraping against it before he applied pressure with his thumb and forefinger, twisting at the handle. Jemma cleared her throat, feeling the flush rise on her neck. She brought one of her own hands up to the collar of her shirt, fingertips worrying the fabric while he twisted the handle completely around, pulling it apart and revealing a flashdrive hidden inside.

"Clever," Triplett remarked. "Let's find out what's on it."

-o-


	6. Chapter 6

Law & Order: MCU

-o-

Part Six

-o-

"Jesus. Look a' all o' this."

Jemma, Fitz, and Triplett were crushed together at the kitchen counter, eyes glued to Fitz's laptop, watching as file after file popped up on the screen. The light on Skye's flashdrive blinking steadily as everything downloaded.

"All of these files," Jemma mumbled, "they're all about John Garrett."

"It's everything we couldn't find," Triplett agreed. "Why would Skye have all of this?"

"I don't – I don't know." She shook her head. "Maybe it was for a job?" Jemma's fingers reached over Fitz's to begin typing, implementing search protocols, looking for Hydromorphodiazecodone or what would have been its more consumer friendly name, Panacetex, in the files, but neither of them produced any results. Her fingers flew over the keys, searching for Raina or Grant Ward, but she didn't find anything on them either. "Hmmm."

"It's all Garrett specific," Fitz thought aloud. "Interestin'."

He took her lead while her hands hovered over the keys and ran his own search for several other buzz words that had cropped up during their investigation, and he found a few – bank records indicating that Garrett was paying off Kaminsky, and a few other police officers in different precincts around the state. There was a list of aliases, a list of bank accounts in his name, and proof that Lake Lerna Industries was funneling money into a religious sect referred to as the Ashlesha group.

"When you brought all of those missing persons files here, you said there were rumors amongst the homeless population about a cult upstate. People kept disappearing, but the police hadn't found any evidence." Jemma swallowed the rest of what she had been about to say as Fitz scrolled through more files, reading at lightning speed.

"The Ashlesha group," Triplett agreed. "This is – Skye is – she managed to put it all together when no one was even launching a formal investigation into those missing people."

"But she doesn't have anything in here about the drug, which means she didn't know about any of that before she was taken," Jemma cut in.

"No," Fitz agreed. "I think the cult is Garrett's way of coverin' his tracks. He looks like a supporter o' this religious group if people donnae look too deep, like his company's givin' ta charity. But with everythin' Skye found, ye can see he actually owns both groups. He's funnelin' tha money back inta his own pocket, populatin' his little cult with runaways and homeless people tha' willnae be missed. This is proof tha' he's guilty o' money launderin' at tha very least. We get Skye away from 'em an' she can testify ta kidnappin' an' grand theft, corporate espionage, we can make a case fer him as a terrorist if we can prove he's behind the theft o' the drug fer use instead o' business."

"How would we even be able to prove that though?" Jemma asked.

"We'd have to catch them in the act," Triplett said easily. There was a pause as they all stared at one another. "You aren't going to yell at me when I say that Doctor Simmons is going to have to go back to work, are you?" He directed his last question at Fitz, who calmly walked away from the computer and opened up Triplett's takeout.

"Jemma," Fitz started as he unpacked a container of rice, needing something to do with his hands, "ye need ta think abou' this carefully."

"This isn't just about Skye or those missing people anymore," she responded quickly. "We have to stop them."

"Yeah. We do," Fitz agreed slowly. "I wasnae goin' ta try an' stop ye," he said, though the way he gripped the next container he pulled out indicated otherwise. "But jus' because we know wha' they're after doesnae mean they're goin' ta steal it tomorrow. If they've got people on tha inside, they either donnae know where the information on tha drug is, or – "

"They're waiting to make sure the theft goes unnoticed," Trip concluded, hand slapping the counter in frustration. "We have no idea when they're going to go after it."

"Yes, we do," Jemma said. "Skye told me… She must have known that I would be looking for her."

"What?"

"She said I should get into some shenanigans."

"Okay…"

Jemma smiled suddenly. "When Skye moved in with me last year, it was right before the annual holiday party. For a company full of lab technicians and salespeople, they never miss an opportunity to put the research on pause and throw a party. It's the only time anyone drops their focus. I joked with Skye that I never went to the company parties because I couldn't afford to get into any drunken _shenanigans_." She laughed. "She teased me every time there was a party and said that no one used the word shenanigans anymore, that it was silly. If she used that word, the party's important."

"Are ye sayin' we've got ta wait another month before they try ta steal anythin'?"

"No. There's a company Halloween party this weekend, and employees are encouraged to dress in costume. Don't you see? It's perfect! They can dress up like cat burglars, wear masks, anything, as long as they have ID badges to get in, no one is going to question them, and they've got someone on security, so he can make them ID badges! They can blend in, and with all the party activities that go on, no one is going to question a couple of people on a floor where there isn't alcohol or music. They'll have the run of the place."

Fitz scratched the back of his neck. "When is this party?"

"_Tomorrow_," Jemma said smugly, trying not to laugh. "That's probably why they let Skye call. Her calling is supposed to make me feel better so that if I've been looking, I stop looking too hard, right? And it's their show of goodwill for her so she'll be inclined to help them." She seemed very proud of herself for reaching that conclusion.

"Have you been marathoning cop shows while we've been working?" Triplett joked.

"I might have watched a few," she muttered.

"This is all well an' good fer ye, yer an employee, but how're Trip an' I supposed to get in?"

"Fitz," Trip walked around the counter to clap his partner on the shoulder. "It's a party! I'm sure she can bring a date!"

"Right." He handed Triplett a container of curry without looking at them. "Ye should take Trip in with ye. Ye already got him in once as yer boyfriend fer an interview."

"Nah," Triplett told them before Jemma could say anything. He grinned as he added, "We broke up. I wasn't responsible enough for her, skipped out on the interview she got me and everything."

-o-

Jemma had not been happy with the prospect of having to go out and track down costume pieces for a Halloween party just days before the holiday, but after attempting to put together a costume from the few things in the apartment that were not a normal part of her or Skye's wardrobes, all she found was a hula skirt (Skye's), the Cat in the Hat's top hat (Jemma's), Harry Potter glasses (she couldn't remember if those were hers or Skye's, but either way, she wasn't wearing those), an Albert Einstein wig (Jemma's), and a Miss America sash (Skye's). Not the best blend of items to create a costume.

She knew the costume was just to help her blend in, but she couldn't help but think about the number of assistants to the big bosses and female scientists who were going to take this opportunity to show as much skin as possible. If Fitz was going to be distracted by anyone during their little undercover operation, it was going to be her, not one of her coworkers who could be doubling as an evil spy. She resigned herself to having to brave the festive crowds with their pumpkin spice lattes and trendy scarves that would be snapping up last minutes outfits from mostly empty shelves.

Much to her surprise though, she found the perfect outfit for herself, and some much needed blue paint for Fitz.

"Fitz, you have to hold still or I'm going to end up getting this face paint in your hair. You do not want to have to get blue face paint out of your curls, trust me." Jemma very carefully used a makeup brush to fill in the space between the two blue lines she had already drawn on Fitz's face.

"Do I wan' ta know why ye know tha'?" He raised an eyebrow, not caring if it ended up blue too.

A smile curved on her face and she pursed her lips before replying, "I played the blue fairy in a children's play of Pinocchio when I was very small. My teacher used blue face paint to tint my hairline, threw a bunch of glitter on me, thought that made me look more ethereal. My fringe was blue for nearly a week. She didn't realize the pigment would essentially dye my hair."

"Ye were a fairy?" His smile stretched as far as it could, pulling his muscles taught, and she poked him sharply with the brush to get him to stop, but it didn't make a difference. "I bet ye were adorable."

"If you stop moving around so much, maybe I'll show you a picture sometime."

Fitz went completely still, dropping the grin from his face, and lowering his eyebrow. His eyes bored into hers, and her mouth twitched in amusement. Taking one step closer to him, Jemma concentrated on covering the strip of his skin on his face with the cheap blue paint. His breath on her wrist raised goose bumps on her skin, but she controlled her own breathing, willing her heartbeat to stay steady. When she leaned down, tilting his head up with a finger under his chin, she felt his breathing pick up, and she smiled in satisfaction.

Good. It wasn't just her then.

"Okay," she said softly, as she surveyed her work a moment longer, "you are all set. You can put on the rest of your costume now. I'm going to go change."

Fitz stood and looked at himself in the mirror hanging in one corner of the living room.

"Did ye 'ave ta use so much blue?"

"I'm just trying to make sure people recognize the costume and don't look too closely at who you really are. If you didn't want the blue face paint, you could have picked a different character. But you said you already had most of the costume."

"It's no' _exactly_ a costume."

Jemma smiled at him. "No one's going to know that your tartan isn't the same as William Wallace's. Now, finish getting ready! We should leave soon." She called the other words over her shoulder as she made her way down the hall to her bedroom. She changed as quickly as possible, throwing her dress on and giving herself a quick coat of mascara. While other women would probably wear sexy stilettos on a night like tonight, Jemma couldn't afford to be unable to run down the stairs if anything went wrong, so she grabbed a pair of boots instead.

When she marched her way back to the living room, she found Fitz sitting on the couch, eyes flitting around the room nervously. In his kilt and vest, he really was the perfect image of a Scottish warrior for independence. She leaned against the frame in the entryway, just wanting to take in the image of Fitz in costume in her living room for a moment. If she set aside the fact that they were going out to thwart the plans of a group of criminals, and hopefully find a way to save Skye, then she could pretend that this was a real date, and at some point she was going to get to see a lot more of him than just his bare legs and arms. Taking a deep breath, Jemma willed herself to stop thinking that way and focus on the task at hand – getting into the company party and finding the evil-doers.

"Ready?" she asked, stepping forward so he could see her.

"Yeah – I –" His eyes moved down to her dress, but he quickly snapped them back up to meet her gaze. "Are ye tha TARDIS?"

She nodded with another smile. "There were only a handful of costumes left, and I actually liked this one. It's cute." She brushed her hands along the A-line skirt of her dress, fingers playing along the _Police Telephone_ plaque printed on the bottom. "What do you think?"

"It's perfect."

"Good." Jemma nodded, her cheeks pink, spotting the leather bag still sitting on the coffee table. "Fitz, you need to wear the bag to hide your gun."

"I'm no' usin' one o' Skye's old purses ta carry my gun."

"It doesn't even look like a purse. It looks like an old fashioned satchel. Where else are you going to put your gun?"

"It's a purse! Can't I just – " He picked his gun up off the coffee table, and gestured to the sporran on his kilt, the small belted bag centered on his waist, and popped it open, attempting to squeeze his handgun into the small space.

"That will never fit in there," she remarked with a shake of her head.

A smirk crossed his face and she flushed further, but instead of responding, he tested a couple of different positions with his gun, trying to make it work.

She waited patiently, not even tapping her foot, while he exhausted his options and looked down at his outfit with a pout. When he sighed and shoved his police issued weapon, handcuffs, badge, phone, and an extra clip into the purse, Jemma tried not to giggle. She lengthened the strap as far as she could so he could wear it across his chest, making it look more like a piece of the costume than a fashion accessory, and when he pulled it over his head and carefully positioned it, it completed his look perfectly.

"See? Now no one will know you're a detective in disguise as a freedom fighter."

-o-

Jemma smiled at Seth at the front desk, showing her employee badge and announcing a plus one, standing neatly in front of Fitz so he wouldn't see his face very well. Seth just nodded his head and waved her in, barely giving her a second glance. Callie, the receptionist at his side, gave Fitz an appreciative once over though until she caught Jemma's eye. The receptionist winked at her in approval and Jemma grinned.

Callie leaned across the desk, leaving Seth to check in the next set of guests on his own, and looked around before gesturing for Jemma to come closer. Fitz, looking at something on his phone, wasn't paying attention. "Two hot guys in one week, Jemma? I'm impressed. You're going to have to tell me your secret."

She shrugged modestly. "Just lucky, I guess," she joked.

"Yeah. I wish we could all be that lucky," Callie teased. "Have fun. I'll see you in there later."

"Trip jus' texted," Fitz informed her while they walked. "He's in tha parking lot if we need him. He says jus' call."

"Good." Jemma reached out when some of her coworkers looked at her in surprise and let her fingers rest on Fitz's elbow. "Did you see that," she asked him quietly, patting his arm with her clutch. "When we checked in at security, all of the monitors were black. They've already cut the cameras! Do you think we're too late?"

"No, tha party's jus' started. They need there ta be enough people here ta have someone ta blame it on, an' they need people ta be liquored up enough ta not notice tha thievin'." He moved one hand to her lower back and led her into the thick of the party. "Keep yer eyes peeled for anyone we know from Lake Lerna, yeah?"

"Yes. Okay."

-o-

"Ooooh, a Braveheart, huh? I haven't seen one of those in years," a tiny woman in a French maid's outfit cooed, teetering on her stilettos. Drink in hand, breasts threatening to fall from her miniscule ensemble at any moment, Fitz thought he could have been back at a bad University kegger where loose morals were more common than flat beer. These people were supposed to be scientists. Shouldn't they be a bit more buttoned up?

"His name is actually William Wallace," Fitz tried to defend his countryman. Everyone remembered the movie, no one remembered the history behind it.

She giggled, reaching out a hand. "And you can even do the accent… Is your costume _completely authentic_?" She shot a glance toward his waist.

"Excuse me?" For the first time that night, Fitz was grateful for the blue paint striped down his face. Hopefully no one around him could see just how deeply crimson his unpainted skin had flushed.

"Well, I hear that the Scots don't wear anything under their kilts…" she trailed off suggestively, her fingers grabbing onto the strap of his bag, and Fitz hastily took a step back, right into Jemma, who had been focused on looking for familiar faces in the crowd of costumed people. This woman was inches away from finding his gun, and while he probably could have flirted his way out of this conversation, he just wanted her gone.

"Jemma!" He announced loudly, and with more relief than he probably needed to since she had only been two steps behind him the entire time. He turned, slipping an arm around her waist and dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

"Hi," she said softly, staring up at him with a question in her eyes. He hoped he wasn't overstepping, but they were supposed to be pretending to be dating, weren't they?

"Oh," the drunk French maid cut in with a pout, "you're with Dr. Simmons."

"Yes. Yes, he is," Jemma remarked firmly, realizing what had been going on while she wasn't paying attention. She leaned her hip more firmly into his grip. "Go find someone else."

"Tha' was – very direct," Fitz commented as he watched the French maid wobble away, still pouting.

"She has a habit of getting completely pissed at every company party and, erm – well, hooking up, with someone in one of the supply closets. Every company has someone like that, don't they? She'll be fine. Probably won't take her more than ten minutes to find someone else. She's just looking for a bit of fun." Jemma nodded, not moving away from him, but leaning closer instead, one hand curling over his shoulder, telling herself she was just keeping up the pretense. She went up on her toes and tilted her head. "Do you think the party's well enough underway," she whispered in his ear, her lips brushing his earlobe just enough that anyone looking at them would think she was simply having an intimate conversation with her boyfriend, the slight shiver he gave at the contact and his arm tightening around her selling their relationship for the room, "that we can sneak out to another floor?"

"Based on tha amount o' empty plastic cups and slurred words, yeah, I think we're good." He pulled her tight against his side and maneuvered them through the crowd to the stairwell at the far end of the hallway. "Have ye seen anyone other than Seth at security?"

"No. No one I recognize." She secured her clutch to her wrist with the tiny strap, not wanting to lose it while they worked.

Just as they reached the door to the stairs, a chorus of _ooohs_ and _ahhs_ sounded from behind them, so Jemma turned to look. There, standing with Sitwell, who was dressed as some sort of superhero that she didn't recognize, was a woman in a green leotard and tights, real flowers wound into her hair, vines tangled around her arms and seemingly into the fabric of her clothing, green glitter making her sparkle in the harsh fluorescent lighting.

"Fitz, what's the name of the woman in Batman with all the plants," she whispered, worry swooping in and settling low in her stomach.

"Poison Ivy," he supplied, turning around to look as well, not bothering to protest that just because he recognized her TARDIS dress didn't mean he was well versed in other nerd lore.

"It's Raina," she told him as the woman thanked admirers, spinning, and allowing people to touch her costume. "She's definitely the same woman who had Skye hack Sitwell's email."

"Probably tha woman from tha restauran' too."

It was really happening. _They were here_. Jemma felt a tightness in her chest, but she ignored it. She was doing this.

"She's probably supposed to keep an eye on things down here, right? Make sure Sitwell doesn't know what's going on?"

"Yeah. Let's go before she notices people leavin'." He took her hand and pulled Jemma into the stairwell with him, pausing to listen for the sound of anyone else's footsteps. "We need ta hurry. Where're we goin'?"

"Third floor," Jemma told him as they climbed, fingers still tangled together. "We need to get to the research, make sure they can't take it with them."

They made it up the stairs and into the archive room without incident. Fitz stayed at the door, one hand in his makeshift-satchel resting on his gun, just in case. He wasn't supposed to use it when not on official police business, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Jemma was placing herself in huge danger here, and he wasn't about to let her run around without some sort of protection.

She thumbed through the files in the cabinet quickly, locating all of the research on hydromorphodiazecodone in a matter of minutes, pulling the folder from the drawer and sitting it on top of the cabinet before something occurred to her.

"We're supposed to catch them in the act, right?" Jemma whispered in the dimly lit room. "We need proof about what they're up to?"

"Yeah."

"Okay…" Jemma thought for a moment before she began flicking through the file and pulling out specific pages.

"Wha' on earth are ye doin'?" Fitz hissed from the door. "We need ta hurry."

"I'm removing everything from the file that has any information about the specific chemical components of the Panacetex. If they don't know _how_ to manufacture it, they _can't_ manufacture it. But – "

"They can still take the file and they can be caught with company documents." Fitz relaxed against the door, just a tad. "Jemma, yer brilliant."

If she noticed the awe in his voice, she tried not to show it. Instead, she chewed thoughtfully on her lip while she worked, placed the folder back into the cabinet, and rolled the rest of the papers together, bounding over to Fitz and slipping them into his bag before sending a quick text to Trip so he'd know where they were.

"Ready," she told him with a smile.

"Where ta next?" He asked her with an answering grin of his own.

"Eighth floor." Jemma swallowed, and her grin dropped away. "Wait, no." She furrowed her brow and thought. "Oh, Fitz, I didn't think. In order to access the sample of Panacetex that we've got in cold storage, we'll need an access code into the refrigeration section. Access codes are given out based on what projects you're assigned. Mine probably won't work. I'm cleared for the research, but not for experimenting with archived drugs."

"But Sitwell's will."

"Well, yes, but they've probably already got it."

"Where's Sitwell's office?"

"Twelfth floor."

"Bloody stairs," Fitz groaned as he grabbed her hand and led her to the stairwell again.

"Fitz, I don't understand. We can't hack his access codes. What are we doing?" She whispered the words to him, just in case there was anyone else in the stairwell above them.

"If they already had a way ta get inta cold storage, they wouldnae 'ave needed Skye," he pointed out. "Ye said Sitwell's computer is on a closed network. They wouldnae be able ta access it remotely."

"You think she's here?" Jemma halted on the steps, her grip on his hand tightening. "We can stop them and save her."

"Le's hope."

"But if she's in there, she's probably not alone."

"An' if she's no' there yet, we've got a chance to try an' figure out how ta get his codes."

Jemma let him pull her up the next flight of stairs. She hadn't considered when they planned on stealing the drug and its research right out from under Lake Lerna's nose that they might actually run into trouble. She had just assumed they could get in and get out, and everything would be fine. It hadn't occurred to her that these people would have brought Skye along for the ride.

They had just reached their eighth set of stairs, and she was panting, when the door above them opened. She and Fitz glanced at one another in surprise, but then he moved, pushing her against the wall, and waiting to see if the person was heading up or down.

Footsteps came toward them, and Jemma acted on impulse. They were supposed to be a couple, right? She reached up, grabbing the v-neck of his vest, and pulled his head down to hers. She very carefully kissed him, hoping against hope she had positioned the blue face paint well enough that she wasn't going to pull back later and look like a smurf.

It only took about ten seconds for her to not care remotely about the smurf possibility and completely tune out the sound of footsteps, her back arching off the wall and Fitz's hand tangling in her hair as he returned her kiss.

"Uh – you two really should be downstairs at the party."

Fitz was the one who let out a slight whine when she pulled back from him, and she couldn't stop her smirk at that. She noted, before raising just her eyes over his shoulder, that she had managed not to smudge any of the paint. Luckily for them, it wasn't Seth in the security guard uniform behind Fitz, who probably would have realized that something was off, it was _Donnie_. Apparently, the foster siblings had been a package deal after all.

"Oh, hi!" She said, bubbling over with false cheer. It wasn't too difficult to feign drunkenness when kissing Fitz had made her brain feel like bubbling champagne. "Mmmm…. My boyfriend's never been here before. I thought I'd _give him the tour_," she explained meaningfully. She found this whole lying thing much easier with Fitz pressed up against her. Then again, maybe she wasn't exactly lying…

"Oh." Donnie seemed confused at her response. "_Oh._" He cleared his throat awkwardly, his eyes straying to the stairs above them and then back down. "Well, um, just…. Stay out of the restricted zones? Wouldn't want to have to come back and catch you setting off any alarms." His face was bright red as he hurried down the stairs and exited on the next floor.

"You made 'im very uncomfortable," Fitz teased her.

"Good." She laughed, then wondered aloud, "should we be worried that we're getting _very good_ at distracting the bad guys with our snogging?"

"I think _worried _is tha wrong word," he pretended to think about it, "I actually think we could use more practice."

"Do you?" Jemma pretended to consider his words as well, heart pounding, but then ducked out from under the arm he had braced on the wall. "Well, let's go find some more bad guys then, shall we?" She held out her hand to him, smiling when he twined their fingers back together, joining her to walk up the next flight of stairs. She could get used to the feel of his hand in hers. Under better circumstances, of course.

They crept slowly along the carpeted hallway on the twelfth floor, just outside of Jasper Sitwell's office. Fitz moved so that he was in front of her, and leaned forward to listen for footsteps, voices, the clacking of computer keys, anything that meant there was someone else there. He didn't hear anything, but Donnie had come from this direction. He kept one hand in Jemma's and the other on the flap of Skye's purse in case he needed to grab his gun. It was becoming something of a habit.

"Come on," he whispered.

She nodded and followed him into Sitwell's office, keeping her eyes peeled for movement.

Fitz checked and double checked the office while Jemma strode to Sitwell's computer.

"Donnie mus' be doin' a security sweep, checkin' ta see if tha floors're clear before they send anyone up," Fitz remarked, joining Jemma at the desk. "We probably donnae have much time."

He started to rub his face, but remembered the blue paint. Nervous habits would have to wait.

Jemma opened the login box and put in Sitwell's employee ID number. But when the password box cropped up, she looked at Fitz helplessly.

"On yer computers, do ye get ta choose yer own password?"

"Yes."

"Any specifics? Do ye have ta have so many number or symbols?"

"No, most of the system itself uses numeric sequences, like the keypads to cold storage, but for our own files, there aren't any restrictions, why?"

"Because mos' people pick things tha are easy ta remember. Sitwell's no' a computer expert or a scientist, he's a business man. He's probably gonna have somethin' simple. Like his house number or his birthday."

"You think he'd be that stupid?"

"Trip said ye complimented his elbows. And he liked it."

"Point taken… Okay," Jemma paced, trying to remember if the staff had ever had a cake brought in for Sitwell's birthday. She vaguely recalled mention of it at the holiday party last year. "Try 120873."

"Ye sure?"

"Yes."

It didn't work. An ugly read screen told them the password was incorrect.

"How many chances do ye get before the system locks ye out?"

"Three."

Jemma brought her hands up to her hair, threading her fingers through it and pulling slightly, undoing the knots Fitz had left her with in the stairwell. The fidgeting helped her think while she paced.

"Jemma, yer makin' me dizzy."

"Sorry. I just… I don't know very much about him. We've had very limited interactions, and the last time, I was too nervous to really pay a lot of attention."

"Well, we know he's not married and he's got a boat."

"Lemurian Star is too long of a password. It only has to be five characters, ten maximum." She stopped her pacing and looked at Fitz. "It only has to be five characters," she repeated. "But we do have to routinely change our passwords. At least once a month… How long do you think he's been seeing Raina?"

"Probably jus' long enough fer a password change," Fitz agreed, typing out the letters. The screen faded to black and the system opened up in front of them. "Ye really are brilliant," he repeated his earlier praise and placed a quick kiss to her forehead before turning back to the screen and doing a fast search to find the assigned access codes. Jemma went very still, not bothering to hide her grin.

"Got it. 492741 ta get inta cold storage. 800340 ta remove tha sample. Okay. Remember tha'."

"Okay." Jemma turned, ready to go out the door, but then she thought better of it. As Fitz logged Sitwell out, she hit the power button on the computer, not bothering to shut it down correctly, thinking that would buy them a little more time when Skye was brought in to hack it. She looked over at Fitz who was staring at her. "You're not going to tell me I'm brilliant again?" He rolled his eyes and pulled her toward the door and against his side. "But I like it when you tell me I'm brilliant."

"Ye _are _brilliant," he muttered against her hair, looking both ways in the hall before heading back toward the stairs.

Just as they reached the door to the staircase though, voices came through from the other side.

"Oh, no."

"Come on, we're goin' ta have ta take tha elevator."

"It'll take too long to get here."

"Then we need ta hide."

"Where do you suggest we hide, Fitz?" Jemma hissed at him, panic setting in as he pulled her to the elevator banks and hit the button to call the lift to them.

"In plain sight."

"But – what if they recognize us or – " The door clicked open down the hall, and Fitz cut her off with a searing kiss.

Right. That's how they could hide in plain sight. Of course. The same way they had repeatedly hidden what they were doing.

Jemma tried to move closer to him as he kissed her, and he groaned when her fingers played with the edges of his vest, sliding against bare skin. She was distantly aware of shuffled feet and hissing voices from somewhere behind Fitz, a result of the people coming from the stairs. She tightened her grip on his vest and pulled, indicating they needed to move closer to the elevator doors, and he complied, leaning her back against the wall, his hand bracing his own weight against the wall next to her head to block the view of her face from the door to the stairwell. His other hand slid to the small of her back, fist clenching in the fabric of her dress as his teeth nipped at her lips, and _Jesus_, Jemma thought, if they weren't careful, they were going to wind up doing a lot more than just hiding until the elevator got there.

She pulled back from him cautiously, her mouth leaving a trail of slow kisses down his jaw and to his neck, and opened her eyes just enough to see that the people from the stairs had used their snogging session as a cover to get into Sitwell's office – one was the man who had met Seth in the alley the other night and the other was "Skye," she breathed into Fitz's ear.

"Wha'?" He froze against her.

"Office," Jemma muttered against his skin by way of explanation.

"Ah – okay." Fitz let out a shuddering breath when she shifted against him.

The sound of the elevator dinged behind them and he directed Jemma inside by slipping his arms around her waist and a nudge of his hips. As soon as the doors shut behind them, he let her go, taking a few quick gulps of air like he couldn't get enough, and whipped out his phone to call Trip. Jemma hit the button for the eighth floor, using Sitwell's code to activate the elevator, hoping someone else wasn't already there waiting for them, and leaned against the metal wall. She watched Fitz as he explained the situation to his partner, her heart caught somewhere in her throat.

"We're on our way ta cold storage. We got the codes. But – " he hesitated, eyes meeting Jemma's, "Skye's here. She's in Sitwell's office with one o' the criminals. She could be in danger." He waited, nodding his head and listening. "Yeah. Tell 'er to send in 'er team. Give 'em enough time ta try an steal everythin' though. Yeah. Five minutes. Donnie and Seth are on security. Last we saw Raina, she was a' tha center o' tha party. No sign o' John Garrett. But Skye's no' ta be arrested…. I know ye know tha' but –" Fitz pulled the phone away from his ear with a shake of his head. "He bloody well hung up on me."

Jemma didn't say anything, just kept watching him. She swallowed, suddenly feeling very claustrophobic in the small elevator. Fitz, realizing she was leaning against the wall, eyes wide, breaths coming quick and harsh, took a small step in her direction.

"Are ye okay?"

"Yeah." Jemma nodded her head. "Yes." She licked her lips. "I just – need to catch my breath, that's all."

"Tha's a good idea."

"Whose team is being sent in? What did Trip say?" She closed her eyes, waiting for an explanation.

"I had 'im give everythin' we had ta his girlfriend."

"His girlfriend?"

"She's an FBI agen'. Did I no' mention tha' before? She's got a team in place, ready ta come in an' arrest all o' them."

"Oh, that's good. Okay." She opened her eyes and found Fitz even closer to her than he was before. "I know where I saw him before, the guy with Skye, he was the same man from the alley."

"Ye got tha' good of a look at 'em?" Fitz asked in surprise. When Jemma blushed, his own skin mirrored her, and he added more gently, "Who is he?"

"Skye and I went out for drinks at that bar down the street from my apartment. You've seen it. They have a bright purple door?"

Fitz nodded his head to indicate he knew what she was talking about.

"He bought us drinks. He hit on Skye. He gave her his number. Fitz, I think –"

"Grant Ward," Fitz interjected.

"Yes… it's almost over."

"Yes."

"We just have to get the drug samples out of cold storage, just in case. We don't want anyone getting away with that."

"Yes."

"Okay. I can do that."

"Jemma, you donnae have ta do anymore. I have tha codes. I can do it." He brushed a few strands of hair from her forehead, letting his fingertips trail down the side of her face.

"Yes I do. Skye would do it for me." She paused, looking him right in the eye, focusing on the pads of his fingers barely grazing her skin. "And I don't want you to go in there alone."

"Okay. Then le's go steal a super drug." He held out one hand and she gratefully locked their fingers together, waiting for the elevator doors to open.

-o-

Fitz cautiously peered through the opening when they came to a stop on the eighth floor. He gave a slight tug on Jemma's hand at seeing the coast was clear, and she quickly hit the buttons for the next few floors below them as well, just in case anyone was keeping an eye on where the lift was going. She saw him shoot her a smile, but she resisted the urge to have him remind her that she was, in fact, brilliant.

The hallway outside the elevator was grey and uninviting. There were only two doors, one that led to the stairwell, and one that led to cold storage.

"We have less than four minutes," Jemma whispered uncertainly, walking up to the keypad.

Fitz punched the code to get inside with his free hand, the door opening with a soft hiss, cold air seeping into the hall around them. Jemma pulled him through the entrance quickly, making sure to push the button on the inner wall to shut the door behind them. It was like a very cold, very sterile, safety deposit box vault at a bank.

"It's bloody freezing in here," Fitz mumbled.

"It's called cold storage for a reason, Fitz. The different samples have to be kept in a narrow temperature range to keep them viable, and there are also samples of viruses that have to be kept cold. Higher temperatures cause those to replicate, like –"

"Jemma," Fitz interrupted her nervous ramble, letting go of her hand, and bracing her shoulders. "I need ye ta focus."

"Right, sorry. Okay." She nodded her head and moved to the control station in the middle of the room, quickly typing the access code to remove the hydromorphodiazecodone from storage. With another hiss, though this one not as pronounced as the entrance door, a drawer slowly slid out from the wall. Jemma rushed to the opening, and pulled the three vials from inside. They each contained just a tiny bit of a fine grey powder.

"Tha's it?" he called.

"Yes. Close the case." She returned to his side as he pushed the button and reset the system. She slipped the vials carefully into her clutch, wedging them in between her phone and keys so they wouldn't move around. She was really starting to feel like a criminal. It was kind of exhilarating when you ignored the fact that you could get caught and go to prison, or that someone might want to kill you.

"All done," Fitz stated softly.

"All done," she agreed.

Skye must have been much faster with Sitwell's computer than they had been because an electronic beeping sound came from the door. Someone was entering a code. Fitz pulled Jemma with him around the back of the control station, where they could hide under the enclosed section of the table.

"That was not four minutes! Fitz, what do we do?"

"Ye stay here." He reached into the bag, retrieving his gun. "I'll hold 'em off, draw 'em away from tha door, an' ye can run. Find an FBI agent."

"No."

"We donnae have time ta argue, Jemma."

She opened her mouth again, but another beep sounded, and the door clicked open with that same hiss, so she didn't get the chance to say anything else. She squeezed her eyes shut in something between frustration and fear, but only for a second, because then she was reaching out and grabbing on to Fitz's arm to make sure he wasn't going anywhere without her.

He mouthed "let go," but she shook her head stubbornly. They had no idea what kinds of weapons those people had on them. She wasn't letting him go. She held fast to his forearm, and shifted slightly to get closer to him, spotting a small fire extinguisher hooked into the panel of the enclosure. She very carefully maneuvered herself so that Fitz couldn't get out from the space without pushing her out of the way. She could feel the frustration coming off him in waves, but she didn't care.

"They really do have amazing facilities here," Donnie's voice came to them. "It's too bad we couldn't really work here."

Jemma gently removed the extinguisher from the clip on the panel, bringing it to her chest and cradling it to herself like it was something precious.

"We never finished school," Seth's voice responded. "Doubt they'd hire a couple of dropouts like us, especially after everything we've done."

Jemma met Fitz's eyes and pulled the pin from the extinguisher, wincing at the light ping it gave. She reached out with one hand to hold on to Fitz's wrist again, nodding at him, shifting so that they could both run if they needed to. Fitz's eyes widened as his thoughts caught up to hers.

"We get this to John, and we can do whatever we want," Donnie reminded his friend.

Keys on the computer clicked above their heads and the drawer on the wall opened with a hiss. If Donnie or Seth made their way over to it, Fitz and Jemma would be directly in their line of sight. Jemma sighed inaudibly, squeezing Fitz's arm reassuringly before letting it go. They were out of options.

Just as Fitz maneuvered to stand and Simmons prepared to let the spray of the extinguisher go, loud shouts came from the entrance, and he forced himself back down, Jemma scrambling to stay hidden by his side.

"FBI! NO ONE MOVE! KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!"

Fitz leaned his head back in relief, sliding his gun back into the bag. Jemma sagged against him, putting the extinguisher on the ground. She wasn't about to get shot by an overzealous agent who thought she was holding a weapon. Not after everything they'd already been through this week.

-o-

"Come on, Skye. You did your job, it's time to go," Grant grabbed her arm and led her to the stairs.

"Where are we going? We don't get to see the goods?" Skye stumbled after him, barely able to keep up with his long stride.

"Nope, we just get in, give them the codes, and let the boys get Raina what she needs."

"So… what do we do now?"

They ran down the first flight of stairs, then the next.

"We meet Garrett at the car." Grant pulled his phone from his pocket and hit the first button on his speed dial. "Sir," he spoke into the phone, still pulling Skye along.

"What is it, son?"

"Skye's good. We're on our way out. Donnie and Seth are handling the rest."

"Good. Good." There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Grant thought that they might have been disconnected, but Garrett cleared his throat and said, "Take Skye where we took the Zellers."

"Sir?"

"She's done her part. We don't need her anymore. I know you and Raina like her, son, but she's a liability."

"Right. Of course." Grant disconnected and put the phone back in his pocket, pulling Skye along faster.

"Ow. Grant, my arm is attached to the rest of me," Skye admonished, but it was like talking to a wall. "What did he say?"

"Your part's done."

"What does that mean?" He didn't answer her, and it didn't take Skye long to figure it out, though she wished she hadn't. "He wants you to kill me. Are you going to kill me?" Grant let out a strangled sigh that came out more like a growl. "You said you liked me," she reminded him.

He stopped abruptly. "I do, which is why you are going to punch me again so I can say you fought back, and you're going to run out that door and into that hall while I keep going."

"What?"

"_I'm letting you get away_."

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself."

"Okay… but I'm not punching you again." She hesitated as he walked down a few more steps, but then she turned and she ran, right into a group of FBI agents. She threw her hands into the air. "Help me, please," she told the woman at the front of the group, "I was kidnapped!"

-o-

Two hours later, Jemma and Fitz were huddled together in the parking lot next to his car while Furious Pharmaceuticals employees milled around being questioned by FBI agents in small groups. Callie was shaking her head in shock as Seth and Donnie were marched by her in handcuffs. Dr. Weaver had her arms crossed, telling the agent in front of her that what they were suggesting was ludicrous because this building was one of the most secure facilities in the country. Sitwell just stared straight ahead as Raina smirked her way into the back of a waiting vehicle, arms secured behind her back, the flowers in her hair beginning to wilt, the vines woven through her costume looking more like snakes under the tint of the windows. There was still no Skye.

Fitz unlocked his car, rummaging around in the back seat until he found what he was looking for.

"Hey," an FBI agent called to him. "No one leaves until they've been cleared."

"Relax," Fitz snapped back, "I'm jus' gettin' a jumper for 'er." He nodded his head at Jemma, whose arms were crossed in front of her. "Ye ran everyone outside in tha middle o' fall. It's bloody cold out!"

He tucked it around Jemma's shoulders and she smiled shyly up at him before slipping her arms into the sleeves. Now that everything was over and done, the weight of finding Skye not hanging over their heads, the rest of the world felt like it was moving very quickly around her, like she was standing still and letting something important pass her by.

"Aren't you cold?" she asked by way of starting a conversation.

"Nah. I'm fine." He shuffled his feet awkwardly though, his hands still on her shoulders. He smoothed down the fabric with a sigh and put his arms down by his side. "Jemma, I was thinkin' – I mean – I was hopin' – if ye wanted ta – tha' is – I think we should – I've really liked gettin' to know ya?" He scrunched his face up in confusion when he couldn't find the right words to say.

"I'd love to," Jemma said before he tried again.

"Wha'?"

"You _were_ asking if I'd like to go on a proper date with you?"

"Yes. A proper date. No stakeouts or theft involved."

"Then, yes. I'd like that very much."

"Well, good," Fitz responded awkwardly before recovering himself to grin cheekily at her. "I do 'ave ta warn ye though, I donnae kiss on tha' firs' date."

Jemma laughed, lightly smacking his arm with the back of her hand.

"Dr. Simmons?" A familiar voice asked from the right. "I believe this belongs to you."

Jemma turned her head just as Skye collided with her. She wrapped her arms around her roommate. "Thank goodness. I wasn't sure if they were going to take you away with the others or not." She eyed the FBI agent over Skye's shoulder and gasped. "Natasha?" she asked in surprise.

"Not just May's secretary," The red headed woman told her with a wink. She turned to Fitz. "Always good to see you, Fitz."

"Natasha," he said curtly before mumbling, "Always slightly terrifying to see you." Louder, he added, "Thanks fer tha help. Any sign o' Garrett?"

"Not yet, but we've got a few good leads thanks to your friend here." She nodded her head at Skye, who was still squeezing the life out of Jemma. "Sif's got you guys cleared to go if you want to take them home. Trip's working crowd control, probably won't leave until Sif does. You know how that goes. The press release won't name any names, just say that a couple of confidential informants and an anonymous source within the company helped take them down." She rolled her eyes. "No one gets in trouble for theft or hacking."

"Thanks."

"What the hell kind of a name is Sif," Skye asked pulling away from Jemma to survey her companions for the first time.

"It's short for Josephine. She hates it. Thinks Sif makes her sound fierce," Natasha said with a smile. "Get some sleep. You guys look like hell." She paused to look at Jemma. "And Dr. Simmons? Burn all the research, okay? We don't need another case like this." She waved them off and shouted to another agent a few parking spaces down, "Barton, you better not be taking witness phone numbers for your personal collection!"

"Skye," Jemma started, "this is Fitz. He's my – detective. He helped me find you."

"Why is his face blue?"

"'s war paint," Fitz joked. "I'm William Wallace."

Skye looked him up and down and whistled in approval. "Nice." She cocked her head to the side and eyed Jemma suspiciously. "Why is _your_ face blue?"

"I'm a TARDIS. They _are _blue."

"Yeah, but you're not _all _blue." Skye looked at their costumes, then back up at their faces, the pieces slowly falling into place. "Oh my god, you were the handsy couple at the elevator!" She cackled with laughter. "I get kidnapped for one week, Jemma, and you go and get a boyfriend!" She shook her head in amusement. "He's cute," she told Jemma loud enough for Fitz to hear.

"Mmm." Jemma flicked her gaze over to Fitz and smiled. "Get in the car, Skye."

"No, seriously, Jemma, he's like _really cute,_" Skye stage whispered. Fitz fought down a chuckle while Jemma's face flushed crimson. Skye looked closer at her dress, pulling at the sweater she was wearing to get a better view. "Aw, and you _are_ the TARDIS. And this dress is adorable on you." She turned to eye Fitz, her expression making it clear that she expected him to agree with her even though she had just met him. "She looks good, right? Even with the face paint."

"Skye," Jemma warned with an eye roll.

"She looks great," Fitz agreed, his attention moving back to Jemma with a smile. "Even with the paint."

"I like him," Skye decided with a nod.

Jemma returned his smile, forgetting that she should be paying attention to her newly recovered roommate.

"You know, they wouldn't let me watch any TV while they had me. I missed this week's episode of _Doctor Who. _Don't tell me what happened! God, you know what else I missed? Cheeseburgers. I was on the freaking oatmeal and rubbery chicken diet with those people. Can we get a cheeseburger," Skye babbled, knowing that the two of them were no longer paying her any mind, but too happy to be back to really be bothered by it. "With pickles? And those fries that are huge? God, you really appreciate fries when you can't have them, you know –"

"Get in the car, Skye," Jemma and Fitz told her in unison.

-o-

_One month later…_

-o-

"If this is a party, do I finally get to meet the infamous Sif?" Skye asked, taking a sip from the beer bottle in front of her.

Trip popped the top from his own bottle and rolled his eyes at her. "She said she'd come by after she finishes up with her paperwork. Don't hold your breath. The FBI loves their paperwork."

"I don't know if you can call five people in an apartment a party," Jemma teased her with a smile. She looked at the clock for the fifth time in as many minutes.

"He'll be here soon," Skye quipped. "He should have been done about forty minutes ago."

"I wasn't – " Jemma protested feebly, her cheeks coloring, before she gave a huff of annoyance. It wasn't fair that Skye could still embarrass her like a twelve-year-old. There was no reason to be embarrassed.

"Yes, you were," Trip and Skye said in unison before toasting one another.

At the sound of a knock on the door, Skye yelled, "come in," in the general direction of the entrance.

"Have ye learned nothin' about keepin' yer door locked?" Fitz's voice grumbled as he walked into the kitchen, shedding his winter coat and tossing it onto the back of a chair on the way.

"We knew you were coming," Skye told him, "besides, Trip was the last one in. Not my fault the senior detective didn't lock the door."

Trip held his hands up in mock surrender while Fitz picked up Jemma's drink and gulped it down.

"Are you okay," she asked him softly while Trip and Skye argued about who should have been in charge of actually locking the door when she let him in.

"Yeah. May called me on my way out. Natasha collared Garrett. There's no danger o' him comin' after ye or Skye now." He set the bottle down on the counter.

"I guess this really is a party, then," Jemma said, covering his hand with one of her own, fingers slipping between his.

"What about Grant," Skye cut in, better at carrying on one conversation and eavesdropping on another than she let on.

"Him too," Fitz answered. "He's makin' a deal. He shouldnae get the same punishment as Garrett though if he talks."

Skye nodded, quiet for once, and pulled her laptop open, pretending not to be interested in the conversation anymore. She typed quickly, her fingers blurring on her keyboard.

"You aren't hacking the FBI, are you?" Trip asked with a little bit of alarm.

Skye shot him a _what-do-you-take-me-for _look and went back to what she was doing. After a few minutes, she grinned, "Did you guys know that Brooklyn PD's system isn't on a closed network? That's not very smart of them."

"Skye!" Three voices yelled at her. They were only partly surprised.

"What? Don't you want to know if you made detective, Fitz? Results are all computerized... It's surprisingly efficient…Tests have already been scanned in…" she trailed off tauntingly before she sighed.

"Tha' would be wrong," Fitz deadpanned, his mouth twitching with the effort of not laughing.

"I guess you can wait a whole week to have them send the results out…"

"Well, she's already hacked in," Jemma offered.

"It's not like she's gonna get in more trouble," Trip agreed.

"Fine, fine. Wha' is it?" Fitz was tempted to close his eyes, as if he could hide from the possibility of a bad score. He had never failed a test in his life though, and considering he knew the information backwards and forwards, he didn't actually believe he would fail miserably.

"You… are officially a detective," Skye told him with a grin and a clap. Trip whooped and Jemma gave him a series of quick kisses. "You did miss two points though. I can change that if you want, give you a perfect score?"

"No!" Again, all three voices yelled at her.

"Jeez. You get kidnapped one time and everybody gets so touchy on the illegal hacking," Skye joked.

"Congratulations," Jemma whispered, wrapping her arms around Fitz's waist and holding on tight.

"Thank ye. I had an excellen' study partner," he grinned.

"I don't think he's talkin' about me," Trip whispered to Skye loud enough that the couple could hear him.

Just as Fitz leaned in to kiss Jemma properly, Skye broke in loudly, "How late are you two going to be up celebrating tonight, just a ballpark figure? I don't need to hear all of that. Ear plugs are uncomfortable to sleep in."

Fitz threw a dish towel at her.

-o-

* * *

><p><strong>Aw, and that's it! Though I will say, if you guys like this universe, I don't think it will take much persuading for me to write more stories within it.<strong>

**Thank you guys so much for reading, and again, a huge thanks to notapepper for helping me with this. I wrote the bulk of this story in two and a half weeks, sending her a few pages at a time to start with as I worked out the kinks of the plot, and she kept me from throwing in the towel when I was frustrated with it. And over the course of two months, she kept editing as I made changes, and she saved me from a few issues just days before I had to post it. She's basically a goddess.**


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